


How to Succeed at High Treason Without Really Trying

by 23Murasaki



Series: Treason!verse [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: (but who even knows how it does work oops), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Because Screw Canon Is Why, Ben needs about fifty adults and a therapist, Ben's ridiculous crush on a person who pretty much doesn't exist gets its own tag, But I don't think we have canon kid!Hux anywhere so whatever, Darth Plagueis talks like A Pretentious Git, Extended Metaphors, Force Ghosts, Force Ghosts that actually do something useful, Gen, Headcanons Everywhere, Hux is Not Nice, Hux is a PR nightmare, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I am so jazzed that that's a tag wow, I mean not really but it definitely sounds like Snoke is about to call up Nyarlathotep or something, Lando Calrissian with small children is the best thing, Lando is awesome and I may like him too much, Leia is a little terrifying, Lovecraftian, Metaphors be with you, No Romance, Please don't ship the children they're still small, Probably ooc, Really Bad Metaphors, Really Obscene Amounts of Headcanons, Rey Skywalker, Sith Shenanigans, Skywalker Family Drama, Tagging characters as I go, The Force Does Not Work Like That, Usurping Usurpers who Usurp, don't do shoggoths kids, halfassing military strategy for fun and profit, kids make bad life choices, questionable definitions of the word "heir", tag yourself i'm the senator's teenage daughter, the Dark Side is either a Lovecraft-style abomination or it's basically drugs, too much worldbuilding (galaxybuilding??) i am so sorry, write drunk edit never
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-29
Updated: 2016-06-20
Packaged: 2018-05-16 19:54:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 41
Words: 54,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5838865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/23Murasaki/pseuds/23Murasaki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Continuing my trend of liking things where a great many characters die and then making AUs where no one dies:</p><p>Sixteen-year-old Brendol Hux II isn't a general yet. He's cold, pragmatic, and on the fast track to being a First Order officer, yes, but he's still in training and in his father's shadow. One rather poor decision and the extended ramifications thereof later, he's on the fast track to ruining not just his own career, but the entire First Order along with it.</p><p>(Meanwhile, 12-year-old Ben Solo is a human disaster, but he's a human disaster with a destiny. He's just not entirely sure what it is yet.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Brendol Hux II (1)

Brendol Hux II is every inch his father’s son, from the height to the hair to the cold, calculating mind. At sixteen, he’s top of his class at the academy, and the only thing that’s whispered about him is that he’s straight-laced and straight-faced. He hasn’t given them anything to whisper about. He plays chess, like his father does, and studies people, like his father does, though he deviates enough from the form to prefer military strategy to psychology. The former is really just an application of the latter, as far as he is concerned. He is the youngest person aboard the Citadel, and he is on track to being the youngest ranked officer in the First Order.

Brendol Hux II is currently at an absolute loss for what to do.

He is aboard the Citadel because his father’s presence has been requested at a meeting of the most brilliant minds of the First Order, and Commandant Hux thinks it useful to have his son on hand. He is not at the meeting, however, because Commandant Hux does not count his son among the brightest minds of the First Order, which is sensible, if insulting. He is in the room he is in because he is tracing the source of a power outage, for lack of anything better to do, and he certainly has found it.

And now he has no idea what his next move should be, because the apparent source of the outage is a boy, one that is curled on the floor with his hands over his ears, face contorted in a silent scream while flashes of lightning arc around his thin body. That would be strange in and of itself, but absolutely nothing about the boy belongs on the Citadel, and that’s what’s really giving him pause. 

Brendol Hux II is the youngest person aboard the Citadel. This boy looks younger than him– acts even younger– is still a child. 

Brendol Hux II is a tactical genius and a chess player. This is not a part of the game he has been prepared for. 

Brendol Hux II is every inch his father’s son. He can walk away, because the boy on the floor means nothing to him, genuinely, because he can chalk this up to the Force and its users and never think about it again. He doesn’t walk away, and it’s not because his heartstrings are tugged – as if he has those still – or because he recognizes the boy – he doesn’t, he won’t for hours – but because it just doesn’t fit. The boy on the floor and the arcs of lightning don’t fit the image of the First Order that he knows, so clearly they shouldn’t be there. 

The lightning is easy enough to doge around, which makes him think it isn’t meant to be a weapon as much as a warning, a shield, and a poor one at that. He hoists the younger boy upright by the armpits, the way supervisors at the academy did when they were dealing with sick cadets. This isn’t a cadet, though. A cadet would at least try to stay standing, but this boy crumples as soon as Brendol loosens his grip. Idiot. Shaking him probably won’t help, though, so Brendol slings the boy’s arm over his own shoulders, secures a firm grip on his belt, and heads for the door, still not entirely sure what standard protocol is in such a situation. 

————

There is no standard protocol that he is aware of for dealing with someone who can barely talk and doesn’t know his own name. The boy is incoherent at best, catatonic the rest of the time, and Commandant Hux’s meeting has been dragging on for hours, which makes asking his father for instructions completely out of the question. Brendol amends that as soon as he thinks it– he doesn’t much want to ask his father for instructions. The Commandant is arrogant, condescending, and single-minded, and Brendol Hux II is every inch his father’s son. 

“Where are you from?” he asks, trying to make his voice gentle. It doesn’t work. Not that it matters, because the boy is staring into the air in front of him and mumbling to himself, completely unaware of everything. At least he’s not giving off sparks anymore, Brendol thinks. They’re in a shuttle now, so that no one can accidentally stumble upon them, and it would be bad if he caused something to break down again. Fine. He can do this the hard way.

The shuttle may be small, but it can do lightspeed if it needs to. Brendol estimates that it needs to. The boy’s accent places his home rather far from the First Order’s strongholds. With his father’s passcodes, he should have access to enough databases to allow him to figure out who this interloper is, and to put him back where he needs to be before either of them are missed. 

It’s possible, though, that the boy has already been missed. It’s possible that someone’s out there looking for him, worried, waiting, that he’ll be welcomed home with joy and open arms. Either way, Brendol won’t be missed until the conference is through, most likely, because the Commandant has some grand plan for indoctrinating armies for the cause. 

————

The boy’s ID match is in a bloody New Republic database. Brendol wants to strangle him, but refrains, because at least this means his guess is right. It takes four hours to get to the right part of the galaxy, and half an hour more to pinpoint where one could leave the possibly dying offspring of Resistance General Organa. For obvious reasons, said general is not very easy to find. Her people, occasionally, are, and Brendol takes a chance and flags down what looks like a merchant ship but isn’t really – he can see some of the adjustments that have been made, and they’re quite good, he’s just looking for them. 

“Who’s there?” asks a man’s voice from the adjusted merchant ship. It’s deep and laced with a politician’s sort of fake friendliness, and that in and of itself is wonderfully familiar. Brendol stumbles on words – purposefully, because a show of weakness was warranted here. 

“Please,” he begins. Too steady. “Please– He’s sick. Are you with– I heard you were, you see–“

“Slow down, kid,” says the man, fake friendliness mixing with what sounds almost like real concern. “What’s the matter? Where did you come from?”

“He– I have someone on board with me. He’s sick. He says– said, he’s not talking now–“ He manages to choke up at that, and is quite proud of himself. “His name’s Organa, like the general…” There is silence for a long moment, and he almost thinks he’s done something wrong, but the other ship turns and its captain speaks.

“Organa? Does Mr Organa have a first name?” Not one Brendol knows, certainly, and he’s not arrogant enough to think he can guess it.

“I– I don’t know,” he makes himself whimper. “I don’t know him– I found him.” All the best lies have truth at their core. All the best propaganda works off of something real: real fear of a real threat, blown up however you like it. “Please. I’m not armed, and I’m almost out of fuel, and he’s sick and I don’t know what’s wrong with him, but I think he’s– he’s force-sensitive, right? He keeps hurting himself.”

“… Hold still,” says the other ship’s captain. “We’ll pull you up. Don’t try anything.” He hasn’t got anything to try. The boy’s breathing is shallow, and has a bad tendency to stop altogether when Brendol doesn’t have a hand on him. He can get information out of this, at least. 

————

He’s right, it is a Resistance vessel. The captain does know General Organa, and does recognize the boy as her son, Ben. Ben is, apparently, supposed to be at school somewhere. Brendol has to actively fight the urge to say that the school has done a poor job. Possibly it had poor material to work with. Someone like Ben would wash out of the academy in a matter of weeks, if he even lived that long. 

Anyway, Ben is hustled off back to his mother, and Brendol finds himself staring down the captain and considering his next move. He’s dealing with an adult, an officer. It’s proper to allow him to speak first and set the tone. He does.

“You’re an Imperial cadet,” he says, not breaking eye contact. “I wonder how Ben crossed your path.” There’s an unasked part to the question, which amounts to you’re an enemy in training what do you want out of this. 

“He… I found him in a back room, sir. He was… There was a lot of lightning, sir.” It’s not like he hasn’t heard stories about Sith Lords. Even if he hadn’t heard them, Commandant Hux had worked for the Jedi Council. Brendol knows what force lightning is. He has a feeling this man does too. He dresses like a merchant prince, but he has the cool eyes of a canny wartime politician, and even if he belongs to the wrong side it’s something Brendol is prepared to deal with. 

“And you brought him here.” Jedi – and Sith – can look into your mind and take apart your every thought. Commandant Hux thinks anyone can do that, given enough training. This man possibly can. Though they look nothing alike, he reminds Brendol terribly of his father. They are both deceptively pleasant-looking. 

“Yes, sir.” The hairs on the back of Brendol’s neck are standing on end. “I… he kept talking about General Organa, and he clearly wasn’t one of ours, so, yes, sir, I brought him here.” Better to play the stupid boy soldier. People tended to underestimate their enemies. 

“Nice of you,” says the man with a political smile. “But I can’t imagine your father being partial to sensitivity training, Cadet Hux.” Ah. Now that is a problem, if this man knows who he was. Lying can’t get him out of that. 

“My father doesn’t know,” he says honestly. “I doubt –“ He manages to make his voice waver. “I doubt he’d be proud of me.” None of that is a lie. Commandant Hux would either laugh or curse at him if he knew. It all depends on the endgame. Everything always depends on the endgame. The man across the table smiles slightly, and it’s a gentler smile than Brendol expects from him. 

“Likely not,” the man admits. “But it was still a kind thing you did. Do you mean to go back to the academy now?” If he can make it back to the Citadel before he’s missed, he will. Otherwise, back to the academy, yes. 

“Yes, sir. U–unless my father catches me.” It all depends on the endgame. The man is scrutinizing him so closely it almost hurts. It’s good to know your enemies. Brendol wonders if this man lives by his father’s mantras too. He expects the raised hand to come down with a blow, but it doesn’t, it just falls gently on his head. The man ruffles his hair half-heartedly and stands back up. 

“Right. We refueled your ship for you. That’s the least we could do. Safe travels.” He sounds disappointed. Did he expect a defection? Surely not. That man recognized him, realized he was his father’s son, every inch his father’s son. There is no way he expects anything else. 

————

Brendol comes away from the experience with a working map of the fake merchant vessel in his mind, the name of the captain – Admiral Calrissian, Calrissian, space that is an old name – the knowledge that General Organa has a force-sensitive son named Ben, and a solid confirmation of vague knowledge about where the Resistance traveled. That is something. That is enough. He can use that. He can use the knowledge that no one noticed his absence too.

He isn’t sure what he can do with the holobook Admiral Carlissian or one of his people left on his shuttle. It’s a history book, with a source list longer than his arm, and it tells about things he’s never even heard of before. He reads it start to end five times in the next month and justifies himself with the idea that he has to know his enemy. 

Brendol Hux II is every inch his father’s son. He comes back from the Citadel with his back straight, straight-laced and straight-faced, and he beats his classmates at chess and gets top marks. He doesn’t give them anything to whisper about. He never gives them anything to whisper about. 

Commandant Hux is the sort of man who in steady, measured paces turned from a servant of the Jedi Council to one of the masterminds of the First Order. His treason is perfectly logical, perfectly sensible, dispassionate and incremental. No one noticed it, he barely noticed it himself. And Brendol Hux II is every inch his father’s son.


	2. Ben Solo (1)

Uncle Luke says that they shouldn’t be scary. Lots of Jedi see ghosts, that’s just the way of the Force. The voices are just echoes of the Force. It’s something normal. It shouldn’t be scary. Sometimes Uncle Luke sees his old master, or his father. The ones Ben sees are not anyone’s father, he doesn’t think. They have grabbing hands and whispering voices and twisted faces and eyes that see through him and through everyone else because they know they know they know

The one that scares him the least is the one with the mask. He hates masks, and he hates its modulated, droid-like voice, but at least that one doesn’t grab at him and lets him pretend he’s hiding properly, even though you can’t run away from them, you can’t hide from them, they know everything because the Force is everywhere.

Everyone probably sees them. Ben’s just scared because he’s a coward, because he’s weak, because he’s not enough like his heroic parents and uncle. They saved the galaxy, and he can’t even face normal things like ghosts and voices. Uncle Luke says they’re nothing to be scared of, there’s nothing at all to be scared of, nothing in the galaxy, in the universe that can overpower a real Jedi. He trusts Uncle Luke implicitly. 

The whispering voice in his head isn’t something new. It sounds like all of the others, but this one speaks more clearly. It says there’s nothing in the galaxy, in the universe that can overpower a real Jedi, that there’s nothing he should be afraid of. He tells the voice that he can’t be a real Jedi because he’s scared of everything, that if he was stronger, if he was braver, maybe then he’d be a real Jedi, but the way he is he’s just a failure. The whispering voice agrees, and Ben cries for about a day straight. 

The voice comes back when he’s calmer. It says he is weak, he is cowardly, but it can show him how to be stronger, how to harness the power inside him that could make him the most powerful force-user since his grandfather. Ben doesn’t know very much about his grandfather. The voice knows all about him, all about power, all about how to be strong and brave and a real knight. 

It helps. At first. He’s less afraid with the voice in his ear, and the ghosts seem less real, and it doesn’t matter, it really doesn’t matter that he’s losing time. As long as he’s making Uncle Luke proud, making his parents proud, it doesn’t matter that he wakes up in strange places, or that sometimes it’s a full day, two days later and he doesn’t know what he’s been doing. It doesn’t matter that Rey doesn’t run to hug him anymore – why should it matter? She’s just a kid, kids are stupid. He’ll show everyone. 

————

He doesn’t remember stowing away on that ship, but he does know he’s doing it for a good reason. He’s going to find his father. His father’s on the Falcon. He’s going to find the Falcon and find his father and show him real power, and then he’ll never leave again.

————

He’s somewhere. He’s not sure where. He’s going to find his father. He’s going to find his grandfather. He’ll be as powerful as his grandfather. 

He’s a Skywalker. The voice agrees.

————

Rey is angry at him, isn’t she? Rey isn’t there, though. He’s supposed to be where Rey is. Why isn’t he there? Uncle Luke is going to be disappointed again.

————

He needs to find his grandfather. His grandfather is one with the Force, and the Force is everywhere. That should work. He just has to be everywhere.

————

He’s going to find someone who isn’t going to leave, something constant, something real.

————

He is going to become a constant thing. You can’t be left behind if you’re everywhere, if you know everything. He’s going to be like Uncle Luke.

————

He’s going to be like his grandfather.

————

He doesn’t know where he is. He has no idea where he is. It’s cold.

————

His head burns. He’s shaking. He doesn’t know where he is. Something is wrong. Isn’t he supposed to be somewhere else? He can’t remember. He’s supposed to be with someone, but he's alone.

————

He’s not alone he’s not alone he’s not alone he’s not alone he’s not alone he’s not alone he’s not alone they’re everywhere they’re everywhere they’re everywhere he’s not alone he’s not alone

————

He hits a wall. He’s not sure if it’s a real wall, but it’s something that isn’t whispering so he keeps hitting it out of pure desperation. There’s a voice that goes with it, probably, but it’s so far away he can’t even be sure it’s real.

————

Something is moving him, and it feels like he’s trapped in a very small room, walls built up around him. He can’t be anything like this, but at least it doesn’t hurt. No one else is there. He’s alone. Isn’t he supposed to be with … with someone? Isn’t someone supposed to be there with him?

————

When he wakes up, when he really wakes up, he’s in his room. He can feel his mother nearby. It’s safe. He’s safe. He’s not alone. He was alone, but now he’s not. 

He has no idea how he got home. Someone brought him home. His mother tells him Uncle Lando brought him home, after someone brought him to Uncle Lando, but she has a fortress in her mind and he can’t find out more. 

“He didn’t give his name,” says Uncle Lando with a thin smile. Uncle Lando tells a lot of lies, but this isn’t one of them. His mental fortress is easier to breach than Ben’s mother’s, and he manages to wrench an image out of there – a boy with flaming red hair, sitting with his head down and his hands folded, Ben can’t see his face clearly but that’s enough.

Ben’s too young, too headstrong, and too much like his grandfather to think that the image was willingly given, that Uncle Lando knows enough about children and Skywalkers and Solos to know he wouldn’t back off until he had something and thus has given him something that’s really nothing. Red hair isn’t common in humans, but Ben can’t even tell if the boy is human. 

————

He doesn’t go back to Uncle Luke for a long time. His mother refuses to let him, not after he tells her about the voices, about the ghosts, about the whispers in his ear. She wants to build a fortress in his mind and teach him how to protect himself with words and thoughts. He doesn’t think he can do that. His mother can turn words to weapons and weapons to words, and for every minute a conversation continues, she can find cracks and holes and vital points. For every minute a conversation goes on, Ben loses track of another part of himself. 

————

When he does go back to Uncle Luke, it’s with strict instructions not to listen to voices and to tell an adult if that one comes back or if he starts forgetting again. He doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to go back, he doesn’t want to stay, he doesn’t want to hear things, he doesn’t want to be alone, he doesn’t want anything. He wants to curl up and sleep until he can be someone else. 

Until he can be like his grandfather. 

————

His grandfather’s name was Anakin, and Uncle Luke says he was a hero. He fought the Dark Side, and in the end, he won. 

“People say many things,” says Uncle Luke, “but Anakin Skywalker died a Jedi.”

————

The ghost in the mask, the one with the weird voice, lets Ben hide up a tree and pretends it doesn’t know he’s there. Usually they sit in silence, but this time Ben has words pressing at his lips. 

“Anakin,” he whispers, and the mask tilts up to look at him. His grandfather died a Jedi and a hero. “You’re Anakin Skywalker.” He knows that’s true. He absolutely knows it. He knows his grandfather is smiling under that mask. 

Rey bounds over and waves at him before anything else can happen, and the ghost fades, but that’s alright. The Force is everywhere.

He isn’t alone.

He’s going to be a hero, like his grandfather.


	3. Brendol Hux II (2)

It’s a matter of getting top marks. That’s the only reason Brendol cares about getting absolutely everyone on his team through every level of the simulation. If he leaves someone behind, he’ll lose points, and he hasn’t reached the top of his class by losing points. He is every inch his father’s son, and as such doesn’t approve of imperfection. 

He doesn’t know the name of the terrified-looking boy he has to physically shove through an air vent. He doesn’t know the name of the girl who freezes at the sight of holographic flames and doesn’t snap out of it until he screams at her to move. He doesn’t know the name of the ones that obey his snapped orders instantly. He doesn’t know the names of the ones who dare to question him. Their names are irrelevant. They’re just statistics.

If they all get through the level, he gets a perfect score. That’s all that matters. That’s why he’s the last one out of any stage, that’s why he pushes and orders and cajoles all of his assigned subordinates to safety. That’s why he when he’s almost sure all of them are through, he chances one last look around; Brendol Hux II is every inch his father’s son, and he’s not going to lose points because some idiot stopped to tie his shoe.

There isn’t anyone there, and he turns back to head for the exit himself, but for a split second it isn’t there, the simulation isn’t there, and there’s a terrified figure curled into a ball at his feet, lightning arcing over its thin body, and he’s about to tread on it. He doesn’t yelp in shock – as if he can feel that – but it’s still enough to make him jerk and stumble, to trip over the boy who isn’t there and hit the ground on his hands and knees even as he snaps back to reality and sees the simulation’s final countdown out of the corner of his eye. 

They’re all replaceable. If he’s the only one who dies in the simulation, it’s the same point cost as any other loss, even though he is supposed to be the captain. He’d have to redo the level, though, and he doesn’t want to redo the level, so he lunges for the escape hatch anyway, even though he’s basically out of time and–

He doesn’t know the name of the cadet who grabs his hand, pulls him through, and slams the hatch closed with barely a second to spare. By the armband she’s wearing, she’s supposed to be his second-in-command, which means she has decent marks herself. That makes some sense. They’ve done these simulations together before. 

“Honestly, Captain,” she says, a little too loudly, a shade theatrically as she drops his hand. “Try to do the damn thing with your shoelaces tied next time. There’s no extra credit for handicapping yourself.” Her back is to the others, so only he can see her wink. They both know the problem isn’t his shoes, but she must want top marks as much as he does. That’s all that matters. He can think of any number of derisive things to snap back at her, but holds his tongue and makes a show of tying his shoes. 

“Thank you,” he says carefully when he’s done. “I thought I would have to redo that level.” She’s covering for him and he doesn’t know why. In her position, he would have berated his teammate for failure or tried to elevate himself. Well, more likely the former. He is already the captain, there is not anywhere higher for him to go. She isn’t, though, so she has no reason to downplay a rescue. 

“I’d rather have the perfect score, thanks,” she says in a more conversational tone, then offers her hand again. It’s for a handshake this time. “Uthra,” she says. It takes a moment too long to process that that’s a name; it’s not a name from the old Empire, certainly. Cadet Uthra and her family are possibly new to the glorious vision that is the First Order. He takes her hand.

“Hux,” he replies. Instead of shaking his hand properly, she lifts it up as if she’s giving him an award. 

“Captain Hux, everyone!” she announces. “If it wasn’t for him, we’d probably fail!” 

Commandant Hux has sent people to their deaths with well-timed faint praise, but Cadet Uthra seems earnest enough. Her words even elicit some applause from the others, much to Brendol’s bafflement. They both get patted on the back for their efforts, and the instructor who announces their scores praises their skill at cooperation. That’s a new one. Brendol Hux II is every inch his father’s son, and as such he is many things, but cooperative is not usually one of them. 

————

Cadet Uthra’s family is not from the old Empire. It doesn’t take much research to find that out. They manufacture weapons, and the First Order is apparently the highest bidder. Cadet Uthra is the first in her family to join the military. She’s doing well, especially for someone without a proper family legacy. That much makes sense. 

“Your father really is the Commandant, then?” she asks, wide-eyed, tilting her chair all the way over so that she’s leaning on Brendol’s desk. He nods shortly. Her interest would make sense if she was in any way consistent about it. “That’s probably tough.”

“Tough?” 

“Big shoes to fill,” she elaborates. “No wonder you work so hard.” She’s being friendly, and for all his study of the human mind and all his research on her background he cannot fathom her motivation. 

“I work hard for the glory of the First Order,” he corrects automatically. Brendan Hux II is every inch his father’s son, so it’s his own glory he’s after as well, but that’s the correct thing to say. Cadet Uthra nods but bites her lip. 

“I don’t think that’s what I meant,” she says very quietly. She’s staring at him as though she’s looking for something to whisper about, but he hasn’t given her anything to whisper about. He hasn’t given anyone anything to whisper about. 

————

He hasn’t slept in two days to write this paper properly. His source list is as long as his arm and he has strong opinions about the Siege of Lothal and Grand Moff Tarkin’s overall combat strategy, and by all the stars he is going to voice them. 

“Was it really?” Cadet Uthra asks, leaning down to read over his shoulder. Brendol pauses in the middle of a sentence about the uses of Imperial propaganda. 

“What?” he asks. She’s interrupting an important train of thought. 

“The shuttle– was it really an Imperial ploy? I always heard it was a rebel attack.” Brendol blinks. Of course it was a rebel attack, of course it was an anarchic act by anarchic fools. He’d read that too. He looks down at his paper and notes that he has just written a full page about how that was a brilliant piece of Imperial propaganda that the First Order could learn from. He flips through to his source list and frowns deeply. The citation is definitely marked down, and it’s definitely the holobook he received from Admiral Calrissian. 

“That means the ploy worked, doesn’t it?” he snaps. “If our own damn cadets don’t know what actually happened!” His important train of thought has crashed to a halt, and he’s as close to afraid as he has been in nearly a decade. Fear is weakness, it clouds the mind. He has to be rational. Cadet Uthra looks at him in admiration. 

“I’m impressed you know,” she says. “I guess the Commandant’s kid gets some privileges…” Brendol Hux II is every inch his father’s son, and as such he isn’t about to let someone take credit for something that he didn’t do. 

“I didn’t learn it from my father,” he says sharply, and Uthra’s eyes go wider. “I read about it. Here, you can have my source list.” He’s stashed the holobook in the back of a shelf in the library, the one place where it won’t be out of place. No one looks for a rock in an asteroid belt, after all. If Uthra looks, she’ll be able to find it. She reads over the source list with interest.

“Syndulla, Syndulla,” she murmurs, tapping her finger on the name of some rebel who must have kept diligent notes to be referenced so much. “I think my parents mentioned her once. I’ll… maybe they know something like this…” Brendol nods shortly, the flash of fear fading quickly. As long as it’s a real person, he’s probably safe. 

————

He rewrites the paper at the last minute. He’s not an idiot. He’s not going to turn in information he isn’t supposed to have in the first place, that’s a recipe for disaster. What he does turn in gets lower marks than he’s used to. He’s still the best, but it’s a painfully narrow margin now. The instructor takes him aside and tells him that while Cadet Uthra is a pretty girl, he needs to keep his mind on his studies. Brendol stares at his feet and mumbles agreement, trying to make his pale cheeks flush.

The instructor is hiding amusement that he caught the son of Commandant Hux in something so prosaic as a schoolboy crush, and he’s hiding relief, too. That boy had seemed to be just like his father– it’s good to see he isn't that cold after all. It doesn’t do to be that cold at sixteen. Maybe at thirty, but not at sixteen.

The instructor is wrong in more ways than he can count. Brendol Hux II is every inch his father’s son.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the OC, but I have to flesh out this academy and there are about four named characters in the First Order that aren't Hux, so here we are. Hux definitely doesn't fancy her; he has the emotional capacity of a rusty teaspoon and his true love is galactic domination, as far as I know.


	4. Ben Solo (2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm switching perspectives in each chapter, and this is definitely for stylistic purposes and not because I have about three plots and one fic to put them into. Yes.

It gets a little better, for Ben. The ghosts come back with a vengeance, but he argues with them. His mother wrote him a list of things to say, and as long as he sticks to the list it works. They stay away. He doesn’t have to argue with his grandfather, though, because his grandfather doesn’t seem to want anything from him except to occasionally correct his form when he’s messing around with practice lightsabers. 

He’s too young and too hazy, some would say too far gone, to realize how strange he seems to anyone outside his head. Even were he ordinary, people would probably look twice at a Jedi apprentice, all arms and legs, training on his own. The fact that his invisible sparring partners fight back and usually win is strange, but can possibly be written off as Jedi nonsense. The fact that more often than not his fellow students find him arguing with thin air, or hiding desperately from something no one else can see.

He scares them, but what he knows is that they don’t talk to him. They travel in little groups or big groups, and they talk and whisper about as coherently as the ghosts, but when he comes near them they fall silent. They’re supposed to be like him, but they’re the same as everyone else, the same as the children of the Resistance who looked right through him and called him names. The only person, the only student who doesn’t do that is Rey.

Rey has to love him, though. She’s his little cousin. He was there – in the next room – when she was born, and he got to hold her for a moment and she smiled at him. Even then she wasn’t afraid of him. Now she three and tends to roam free in Uncle Luke’s school, which is okay because she’s Force sensitive herself. As soon as she’s big enough, she’s going to be an apprentice too, but for now she’s pretty much the school’s pet. And she loves him.

“Ben!” she chirps happily directly behind him. He nearly drops his practice saber on his own foot. The ghost of his grandfather doesn’t laugh or bury his face in his hands, but Ben does hear him say that a Jedi’s lightsaber is his life. 

“Sorry!” Ben hisses. Rey looks around to see whomever he’s apologizing too, but sees no one, because there’s nothing wrong with her. 

“Talking ghosts?” she asks. Ben nods shortly. She must have heard from Uncle Luke. “Where?” He mutely points at his grandfather. And Rey, sweet, darling, innocent Rey who could probably destroy the Dark Side with her smiles alone, waves and says hello. 

————

She doesn’t see the ghosts, but when she catches Ben yelling and arguing she stands up for him and yells in the direction of the nearest large object. It’s endearing, if not really helpful, and he’s so grateful it hurts.

————

Uncle Luke says that a Jedi who can’t work together with others isn’t a very good Jedi. Ben has difficulties with lots of things, including cooperation, but he’s going to do his best to overcome them. Rey will always have his back, he thinks, but Rey is all of three years old and Uncle Luke probably means for him to cooperate with people his own age. 

Ry’lah is thirteen and think she can punch the Force if she gets angry enough. The Force doesn’t work like that, so she tends to punch people instead. She clocks Ben in the nose when he freaks out in the middle of training and then he starts crying, but it makes the ghosts bugger off for a good six hours. Either they don’t want to get punched by Ry’lah or there’s more power in cooperation and groups than Ben originally thought; Ry’lah, her sister, and their friend don’t leave him alone for the rest of the day, and that may be what keeps the ghosts at bay. 

————

Talking to people, real or ghostly, is hard, but it gets less hard with practice. Uncle Luke says so, and Ben’s mother says so, and they’re not wrong. It’s really a relief that they’re not wrong.

When he argues back at Ry’lah and Temmit – they’re being playful, and he knows that, and he wants to play too for once instead of just listening – everyone freezes for nine and a half seconds. It’s the longest nine and a half seconds of his life, and probably proof that he’s not missing any time anymore, and then Temmit laughs aloud and claps him on the back hard enough to leave bruises but everything’s okay.

He’s not alone.

————

As time passes and the already foggy memory of his disappearance and return grows even foggier, Ben builds cloud castles about the boy who brought him home. He doesn’t have a name to put to the face, or really many details of a face, but he knows the boy is his hero. 

Some days Ben is sure he’s a member of the Resistance, that he works for his mother or Uncle Lando and hunts the First Order to the ends of the galaxy. That’s surely heroic, as heroic as being a Jedi, and one day he will cross Ben’s path again when Ben is a Knight and his hero is a ranking officer with medals and his own fleet. Somehow, in those dreams, Ben has nothing of the Dark Side in him– neither rage nor fear. 

Some days Ben thinks of the one image he has of the boy and thinks about the Resistance and decides that there’s no way the boy belongs to them. He must be a prince from some faraway planet, traveling incognito. Even when he’s daydreaming it sounds silly, like something out of a holodrama, but he loves the thought anyway. It either ends with ballroom dancing or galactic domination, depending on whether he’s been listening to gossiping classmates or whispering ghosts that day.

Sometimes the boy is ordinary. That’s rare, though, saved for the days that Ben can’t think very clearly and wishes he were ordinary himself. In those dreams he takes Ben by the hand and leads him somewhere silent, where there aren't wars and Orders of any sort, and where no one cares who Ben’s parents are. When he’s more lucid, he knows that more than anything makes the dream impossible. 

Rationally speaking, he doubts he’ll ever see his hero again. The galaxy is large, and he feels very small, and so much is still unknown. Still, he’s a Jedi, he’s going to be a Jedi, and that means believing in fate and the Force, so he dreams and makes up stories and keeps faith in silly things. He’s going to see that boy again. He’s going to be a hero like his grandfather.  
————

Uncle Luke doesn’t want them to know much about politics. A Jedi, after all, is supposed to be above such things. The ghosts say otherwise. Ben’s mother says that politics isn’t for everyone, and politics combined with the Force leads quite often to bad things happening. He tells the ghosts as much and spends forty minutes that night convincing his prince that galactic domination is not the way to go, because politics is mostly paperwork, corruption, and Sith Lords. His prince, as behooves a figment of his imagination, eventually comes around. 

Ben’s not going to be a politician. His mother is fine with that, she says, because it’s better to stay with what’s close to your heart than to live and suffer and die doing what you think is expected of you. In Naboo, they elected queens. The Resistance is nobody’s kingdom. 

————

Ben throws himself heart and soul into his training, then. He’s going to make them all proud of him– his mother, his father, Uncle Luke and Uncle Chewie and Uncle Lando, all of them. The whole Resistance. 

He’s too young and too hazy, and the changes are too incremental, for him to notice that the ghosts are fading. He gets stronger, mentally as well as physically, little by little, and builds up a mental fortress the way any fortress is built: piece by piece and not alone. 

There will come a day when nothing he doesn’t allow can touch him, when he’s not only shielded from harm but a shield for others. That day is a long way away, because at thirteen Ben Solo is mostly limbs and has a bad tendency to shock anyone who comes too close, but no one stays thirteen forever.


	5. Brendol Hux II (3)

It really, really should not be this easy. Brendol is facing down a security droid in front of what he knows is the door to his father’s world, or at least the part of the academy where Commandant Hux is running his experiments. 

“It’s alright,” says Brendol, feeling rather like he should be waving his hand. “We’re allowed through. We have permission.” He sees Uthra nod vehemently out of the corner of his eye. 

“Permission from whom?” asks the droid.

“Brendol Hux,” Brendol replies evenly, and Uthra hands over passes that are indeed signed by someone with the Commandant’s name. The fact that they are signed by the Commandant’s son, not the Commandant himself, is not mentioned, but Brendol expects to be called on it at any moment. He has a backup excuse all lined up, and two backups to the backup. He is going to get through that door and he will do it without asking his father’s permission. The droid hands the passes back.

“This seems to be in order,” it says, then opens the door. Brendol doesn’t gawk – he doesn’t know how to gawk – but he is slightly put off. Surely his father has better security in place than this, surely it isn’t this easy to get to his top secret work. It can’t be.

————

To the Commandant’s credit, there’s another door between Brendol and the office, and presumably there’s a safe in there. To the Commandant’s detriment, he uses the same three passcodes for everything. Brendol actually guesses the right one on the first try.

“You’re sure you’ve never been in here?” Uthra asks. 

“Certain,” says Brendol. Know your enemy. The thought feels like recoil from a blaster, and he freezes in the middle of the office.

“Hux?” It’s only a moment. Know your enemy. His father can be his enemy as much as anyone else. Emotional bonds are weakness. That’s something he’s been taught from birth. His father worked for the Jedi Council and now builds armies for the First Order, and Brendol is every inch his father’s son.

“Fine,” he says quickly. “I’m fine. Why are you staring at me?” Uthra shakes her head.

“Never mind, I guess,” she mutters, but she keeps shooting him odd looks while they meticulously go through every file in the place and copy the important things. A lot of it is nonsense. Most of it is data. 

————

Uthra is clearly uncomfortable with the fact that the experiments are performed on children. Brendol isn’t sure why. They aren’t her children. They aren’t anyone’s children. There is no real reason for tears to well in her eyes while they skim designations and training patterns and case files. She makes it through fifty-six subjects silently, but chokes up at the sight of the fifty-seventh. The subject in that file, designated FN-2187, is not much different from the previous fifty-six, but Uthra whispers that he looks like he could almost be her brother, that he looks like her father did when he was little. She skims her fingers gently over the holographic image of his face before she pulls herself together and they keep reading.

————

They use the same passes to get in again three days later, because Uthra will not let him rest. She’d been the one who wanted to come with him in the first place, and now she has some sort of ridiculous plan to go in and make sure the subjects are being taken care of properly. She’s being irrational and there is no way Brendol is going to let her go alone. 

He guesses the passcode to that door on the first try too. It’s either a trap or he knows his father too well. He hasn’t hoped to be walking into a trap before. It probably is not a trap, though, because the subjects sitting in orderly rows can’t be older than seven at best, and they don’t seem to be expecting company. 

“Is it an inspection?” one asks, standing up quickly. Closer scrutiny reveals him to be the subject who looks like Uthra’s father as a child, FN-2187. Another shushes him. 

“We’re not an inspection,” Uthra promises, her voice strained. “Not a real one, anyway.” FN-2187 looks at her and Brendol with unabashed interest. 

“Oh. I thought…” He’s hushed again, and this time he drops his gaze and sits, head down, hands folded. It’s a familiar pose. Uthra’s hands are balled into fists at her sides. A droid rolls by them and begins to set up a video feed, and Brendol interrupts it.

“That won’t be necessary today,” he says, calm and steady. “We have a lesson planned.” That’s a lie, but he has an unhealthily detailed knowledge of the Clone Wars, and Uthra makes her speeches sound like stories. 

————

They end up doing that on a weekly basis. The fifth week in, when Uthra has finished waxing lyrical about fighter pilots and Brendol has made a sincere effort to communicate what he knows about the creation of the Death Star in a less-technical way, he thinks of Uthra’s father– of the boy on the Citadel– of Admiral Calrissian– of his own father–

“And what lessons can be learned from the destruction of the Death Star?” he asks before he can stop himself. The room goes silent. FN-2187 even stops in the middle of correcting something the subject next to him wrote. Uthra clears her throat. 

“Any lesson will do,” she says. More silence. They aren’t trained to draw conclusions, they’re trained to follow orders, because Commandant Hux is building an army for the First Order and he used to work for the Jedi Council. “Well, think about–“ 

FN-2187 raises his hand, cautiously, uncertainly. 

————

He can just burn down the office. He’s got copies of most of his father’s work, so it wouldn’t even be a waste.

 

The fact that he gets that far in that train of thought is enough to make him not talk to Uthra for three days. 

————

FN-2187 has abnormally fast reflexes. His file notes that he’s a quick learner as well. He’s young, but he’s clever enough. The other subjects seem to think of him as a teacher’s pet. Officer material, Uthra suggests, and Brendol agrees. Officer material. So why is he hidden away in Commandant Hux’s secret wing?

Is it possible that the Commandant doesn’t notice? Three months ago Brendol would have scoffed at the concept, but now he’s not so sure anymore. The Commandant uses the same three passcodes and hasn’t told his security droids that he and his son have the same name. There are a great many things he may not notice. 

There’s something about it all that’s just outside of Brendol’s comprehension. He goes over what he knows again and again, until a single incredibly ridiculous thought makes him sit up in bed in the middle of the night. 

It’s not possible. Commandant Hux worked for the Jedi Council. He’d know. But he doesn’t know everything, it’s possible he doesn’t know anything. 

It’s not possible because there aren’t any Jedi anymore, not really. Luke Skywalker is alive and with the Resistance, and General Organa’s son can use the Force like a shield, and the First Order’s Supreme Leader can read the future on the Dark Side. 

It’s not possible because FN-2187 is just a part of an experiment, and all of the subjects are more or less the same. He always stands apart from the others, except when he tries to help, and he often tries to help. Officer material, but not just. 

There has to be a test for it. The Jedi had a test for it.

————

It’s not a standard Jedi test by any means, but when the trinket he tosses to FN-2187 as a reward for clever thinking goes a little wide then turns in midair to fly to the boy’s grasping hand, he’s convinced. So’s Uthra. 

FN-2187 is not just another part of another experiment, because Force-sensitive children never are just-something, it doesn’t work like that. 

He wishes for a proper test to confirm it.

He wishes there was standard protocol for that situation. 

————

Why does General Organa’s son get a teacher? Surely someone who can use the Force and use it properly would be an asset to the First Order just like General Organa’s son is an asset to the Resistance. 

He should tell his father. He should tell the Supreme Leader, however it was that one communicated with him.

————

Neither he nor Uthra tell anyone anything. People whisper that they’re lovers, but there are many worse and truer things they could be whispering about.

————

Eight months after he followed his father to the Citadel, eight months after that splendid confirmation that he was going places in the First Order, Brendol Hux II writes up a thirty page paper on Imperial propaganda and why everyone in the First Order is brainwashed, addresses it to Admiral Lando Calrissian, and sends it off to what’s suspected to be a stronghold of Resistance sympathizers far, far away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finn? FINN. I like Finn.


	6. Lando Calrissian (Interlude 1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Taking a break from our usual perspectives, because Lando is wonderful and I wanted an excuse to write him. We'll be back to Ben seeing dead people and Hux making questionable life choices after this.

Lando Calrissian has always been a gambler. It’s a description he embraces, honestly. There’s no point denying things like that. He gambles, and he gambles on a grand scale. His bets involve money, ships, cities– it used to be only tangible things, once, when he was very young. He’s not young now, not anymore, and he bets plans of attack and planets, money, ships, cities, alliances, the bigger the bet the better. He’s always had a damn good a sabacc face.

As a young man, he’d won about as much as he’d lost, maybe a little more, because he’d been so sure that the game was all about himself, about his luck, about his skills. He’s learned since then– no one stays sixteen and arrogant forever, not even the worst of scoundrels. He knows now, has known for a long time now, that the most important things to know in sabacc are your opponents’ tells, whether you’re playing for pittances or planets. 

You have to know them better than they know you, better than they know themselves. It’s a gambler’s maxim, but there are other words for gamblers who win every time they place bets. Their opponents call them cheats, and their admirers call them strategists.

————

When he’s hailed by a vessel in a make he doesn’t recognize that’s in a part of the galaxy it shouldn’t be in, he rolls the dice. It could be nothing, just an honest lost traveler, or it could be a windfall. 

The boy in the vessel sounds desperate in all the right ways. He even chokes up exactly when he’s supposed to. It rings so false that he’s tempted to open fire until the boy mentions Leia – mentions General Organa by name and says he’s got her son. The boy may know his opponent better than originally anticipated. 

Face-to-face, there’s no question of what or who Ben’s rescuer is. Everything about him, from the cut of his shirt to the military-style haircut to the knee boots carries the shadow of the old Empire. His accent is Imperial too, harshened by exposure to only a certain brand of the same, over and over again, a contrast to the careful and overprecise diction of the leaders of the New Republic. 

That would have been tell enough, knowledge enough, but Lando Calrissian gambles to win, and he knows his opponents faces and mannerisms better than they do. He’s seen pictures and holovids of Commandant Hux and he sees the same patterns replicated in the face of the boy sitting across from him, eyes downcast and feigning stupidity.

“Nice of you,” he says with a polite smile, and places his cards metaphorically on the table. “But I can’t imagine your father being partial to sensitivity training, Cadet Hux.” The boy barely reacts– he’s got a damn good sabacc face; his eyes are nervous but they’re consistently nervous, they give nothing away – but his nostrils flare and his hands stiffen, and there’s a tell he’s seen before. You live long enough, you see these sorts of things repeat over and over again. 

————

It’s something of a disappointment when the boy folds. He is a gambler too– who would sneak out of First Order airspace with a half-conscious Jedi apprentice, make contact with his father’s sworn enemy, and keep a straight face and a solid bluff through all of that but a gambler? – but at sixteen Commandant Hux’s son is too cautious to play against a master. 

It’s not much of a bet, nothing much to lose, leaving that holobook in the cockpit. The worst that can happen is that it will go unread and be thrown away. Lando Calrissian has seen a lot of people in his time, and he’s pretty sure he knows the type he’s up against this time. The book won’t go unread and its contents won’t be forgotten.

————

Once, long ago, Lando Calrissian was a smuggler and a single ship was a bet of a lifetime. Now he’s an admiral and a gentleman, and he can bet other people’s futures. 

————

Eight months after he got chewed out for letting Commandant Hux’s son leave his freighter unharmed and without a tracker, a very confused messenger hands him an academic paper on Imperial propaganda and the uses and abuses thereof. It’s addressed to him and forwarded through an outpost near Arkanis, contains copious references to Commandant Hux’s work, and ends with a suggestion that the First Order won’t triumph unless they indoctrinate children and a very detailed description of how the author would go about doing just that if he were the sort of evil person who did that sort of thing. 

It also has a return address. He grins. Looks like the kid knows how to go all in after all.


	7. Ben Solo (3)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We'll be back to Hux and the galaxy's nerdiest defection plan in the next chapter (tomorrow, probably?), but for now, more Ben. And therefore more Force-related shenanigans

Ben doesn’t know anything about the First Order, beyond that it’s out there somewhere and it’s bad. He doesn’t think he needs to know much more than that, and the adults in his life agree. The First Order is far away, and Ben needs to learn how to live in his own body and in the moment. 

For the moment, that means piggybacking Rey over lush green hills, because he can’t lose himself when someone else relies on him. Now the worst thing that can happen is that he gets lost – Uncle Luke and the others can always find him – or drops his cousin – who is so Force-sensitive she bounces and floats instead of falling – but in the future it could be a real matter of life and death. Still, he has to start small, because the Force is in small things just as much as it is in the big ones. 

He’s only dropped Rey once, and every time he isn’t sure where he is he catches a glimpse of his grandfather’s figure striding purposefully in the right direction. He’s so happy, almost deliriously happy at his little successes that he nearly believes he doesn’t hear the whispering voices anymore. 

————

His grandfather’s ghost isn’t like the others. For one thing, Uncle Luke sometimes sees him too, though by now Ben has worked out that he looks different to Uncle Luke. For another thing, he sometimes talks, genuinely talks, instead of whispering and hissing and grabbing. Usually it’s hard to understand anything he says, but he talks and that’s something that matters. 

————

“That does not qualify as clearing your mind.” Ben scowls. Meditation isn’t his strong suit. Even when he’s trying not to think, there’s a constant hum and a buzz and the feeling of being pushed and pulled about. He can’t help but think about not thinking about any of those things. 

“Clear your own mind,” he grumbles. He can feel a presence across from him and more or less on his level, and assumes that whoever he’s talking to is sitting in meditation as well. 

“I am quite capable of that, Ben.” A pause, wherein Ben scowls all the more vehemently. “Anger really is a path to the Dark Side. Try focusing on one thing, if you can’t focus on nothing.” He can focus on being annoyed, that’s for sure. “Something else.” 

“Fine,” he mutters. Something else. Something else. He settles, a bit uncomfortably, on thinking about plants growing. Rey likes plants, so they’re probably a good thing to think about. They’re like … they’re probably a good metaphor, in that they’re natural things that are the root of life and need light to grow. 

“Not just light,” supplies his companion. It’s true enough. They need water, too, and good soil, and Rey likes to sing to them. They probably don’t need Rey’s singing, but her plants like it. Uncle Luke says so. They need to not be stepped on, and to have enough room for their roots to spread out. There’s possibly a metaphor in all of that, but Ben mind runs away with him and traces a root system that spreads and spreads and subdivides into little life-carrying threads.

He’s still there, fascinated, when Uncle Luke pulls him back to reality. For a moment, just a moment, the hum and the buzz are silent, and Ben doesn’t feel himself pushed or pulled anywhere, and he’s entirely in one place and oh, that’s what Uncle Luke means by peaceful. It’s just a moment, but it’s a thrill the sort of which he’s never felt before. 

“He’s not here anymore,” he says when the moment passes. Uncle Luke looks curious, so Ben hastens to elaborate. “The Jedi.” It’s not much of an elaboration, because he quickly realizes he has no idea who he was talking to. He’s entirely sure it was a Jedi, though. Uncle Luke nods seriously.

“I see. Well, I’m sure you’ll see him again. The Force is funny like that.”

————

Some nights, he can’t sleep. Most nights, really, but he usually manages to barricade himself in the back of the fortress his mother tried to build in his head – it’s stronger every day, but he doesn’t notice, not yet – and power through the nightmares. Some nights it’s just impossible, so he wanders instead. The school is usually quiet, with just the usual inaudible pulse of being full of living people. 

“I don’t think that’s polite.” 

That’s Rey’s voice, and she’s outside, and he can’t hear an answer. It makes the hair on the back of his neck stand on end because what if he’s hurt her, what if she’s starting to hear what he hears too? It’s one thing that they whisper to him, it’d be another if they whispered to everyone and he was just weak, but if they’re going after Rey he’ll kill them. It doesn’t matter that they’re dead, he’ll kill them, because she’s too little to be dragged into the Dark, and she’s his little cousin and he has to love her. 

He charges around a corner, electricity coursing in his veins and sparking at his fingertips, to find Rey in the garden, looking up, up, very far up at a familiar masked figure. 

“It’s not polite,” she repeats firmly. “You’re a Jedi, so you can smile like everyone here.” She glances over her shoulder, and smiles brightly. “Ben! I met your ghost!” There’s so many things he wants to say, but it’s a struggle to make the right words come out.

“He’s my– our grandfather,” he manages finally. “That’s our grandfather and his name is Anakin.” Rey’s entire face lights up, so bright he’s almost surprised it’s not an actual light source, and she turns back to the ghost joyfully. 

“Really?” she asks, and when the ghost nods she runs forward to hug him. The intent is there, at least, even though her arms pass through him. Ben’s not sure what he expected to happen, really, but he can feel the ghost’s confusion. Honestly, he shares it. 

————

Rey doesn’t just talk to their grandfather, she argues with him. She’s only three, but she argues with everyone. Uncle Luke says she’s like her mother. Uncle Luke also says she’s like Ben’s mother. His grandfather– Anakin, Anakin says she’s a lot like her grandmother. Apparently there’s a very specific type of woman in this family, and that type is a bit scary.

————

Uncle Luke lets them all go home every six or so months. He says that it’s because a Jedi needs to know the people he or she is protecting, and because children shouldn’t be torn from their parents, and because love is a powerful part of the Force. 

Ben goes back to his mother’s base with Rey. Presumably some of the other students have proper homes to go back to, rather than shuttling between military bases and freighters and the school. Presumably some of them get both parents welcoming them home. Ben’s father is away again, and his mother kisses him on the forehead, spins Rey around in an affectionate circle, then hurries off because there’s something important to do with the Resistance. Uncle Lando isn’t there. Uncle Chewie isn’t there. He’s heard people swear up and down that it’s important Resistance business so many times he never wants to hear the phrase again, and really, since when did his father and Uncle Lando run off to do Resistance business together?

There are always other children on the base, the children of soldiers and pilots and politicians. Ben doesn’t get on very well with any of them. He never did. They all love Rey, though. Everyone loves Rey. The leader of the base’s children – undeniably, unquestioningly – is a boy with beautiful eyes and a winning smile. His father used to be a soldier, and his mother a pilot, but their son is a prince and hero to everyone. He’s not a real prince, though, he’s just a usurper. That should be Ben in his place. He knows the anger he feel is irrational, but he can’t shake it. 

————

It’s a surprise when Uncle Luke arrives on the base a week later. He talks in hushed voices with Ben’s mother. It’s important Resistance business. The boy with the beautiful eyes says there is something to do with the First Order, but it’s all classified. It’s important Resistance business, he knows, and he’s teasing teasing, taunting, like there are whispers behind his easy smile. 

Surely he’s just smiling. Ben knows him, vaguely– he’s well liked and he doesn’t really tell lies– Ben’s mother thinks he’s sweet–

There are whispers behind his smile and he’s lying he’s lying he’s hiding something and he’s laughing at Ben because they’re all laughing at him because they’re petty and small and they’ll never understand true power–

Ben pins the other boy to a wall and rakes through his mind in a fury, but comes away with no information, a broken nose, and the frightened stares of too many people once again. He runs before they can catch him.

He’s stronger than all of them put together– he will be the most powerful Jedi in the galaxy, more powerful than the old dead masters, more powerful than his grandfather – he can make all of them kneel and cower before his might–

He doesn’t want anyone to kneel and cower, he just wants to get out get out get out

————

“They shouldn’t lie to you,” says the whispering voice in his ear. “You deserve better.” He isn’t sure he does, because he did that all by himself. No one else was moving his hands for him. He doesn’t know the boy’s name, doesn’t even know why he was so angry, so willing to hiss and spit and grab at things that aren’t his. 

Someone sits down beside him, so quietly Ben barely notices. He’s too busy trying to argue with the voice in his ear that’s whispering so loudly it drowns out the hiss beside him. It stops saying words, eventually, but Ben knows it’s still there, waiting like some sort of predatory animal. It’s always there, it’s everywhere, he’s never alone, it’s watching him–

“It’s probably drooling, too,” says the person beside him. Ben is jolted out of his thoughts almost violently, and looks up. The speaker a young-looking man in a black robe. He offers Ben a conspiratorial grin. “Disgusting, I can assure you.”

“Drooling?” Ben asks warily. The man nods and taps his fingers on something Ben can’t quite see. 

“Yep. If you poke around in people’s heads too much, it makes you drool all over yourself. Not a pretty picture.” Ben isn’t sure if that’s true, but the man doesn’t look like he’s lying. Plus, it’s a pleasant thought, that the creature he keeps hearing is probably drowning in its own spit for its troubles. 

“Good,” he says quietly. The man beside him tilts his head. 

“Not really,” he says. “You seem to be headed that way yourself.” Ben feels a rush of anger that’s bright and burning enough to hurt, and he lashes out, but the man in black probably is a Jedi after all because it doesn’t even ruffle his curly hair. “Well, at least you’re not denying what you did to that poor boy.”

“He…” Ben’s mother thinks he’s sweet, and Ben’s mother is a good judge of character even though she married his father. She looms large in his mind’s eye at the moment. “I…” He wants to say that he couldn’t stop himself– only he could stop himself, did stop himself, there was plenty worse he could have done but didn’t do–

“You aren’t denying it, right?” presses the man in black. Ben shakes his head. He knows full well what he did, though he’s hazy on the why. “Well, that’s the first step to not doing things like that.” Ben scowls. 

“How would you know?” he mutters. Anger comes easily, more easily than anything else. The man in black sighs heavily, and Ben is hit with someone else’s memory– fire and pain and whispering voices, an ice-cold hand, despair and the Dark, the sensation of knowing something is wrong but not knowing how to stop it–

It stops before Ben can cry out, and the man in black smiles sadly at him. When he smiles like that, he looks terribly like Ben’s mother. 

————

He’s not good at apologies, and ends up crying on the boy with the beautiful eyes. They both end up crying, actually, and Ben’s not sure he’s forgiven.

“Probably not,” says the man in black. “You can’t force forgiveness. That’s something that can only be given willingly.” The voice in Ben’s ear tells him he can force submission, and that’s just as good as forgiveness, but he knows that’s a lie. Submission and forgiveness have nothing in common at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm gonna have to tag Anakin's stupid ghost as a major character soon aren't I?


	8. Brendol Hux II (4)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now I have wifi again, so you guys get a new chapter! 
> 
> ... Wherein Hux really does succeed at high treason (without really trying)!

Brendol passes a breathless week. He is halfway convinced someone will catch him, has caught him, that he’ll be expelled and killed and tried for treason in any given order. The other half of him is just as convinced that the Resistance won’t come, that Admiral Calrissian won’t get his message, that Admiral Calrissian won’t care enough to answer. None of that comes true. 

He wakes up in the middle of the night to a message on his comm, one from an unknown address and signed LC Motte. LC Motte writes that his proposals are reasonable, but if he really does want stolen Resistance ships to tinker with for his first commission he has to set a timeframe and give him somewhere to deliver the things to, and also to try writing to him at this address instead, so that there is less of a delay. Good. He writes back, suggesting that Motte bring the ships directly to the academy, for simplicity’s sake, and promising he’ll set an appropriate timeframe. 

Happiness is a delusion. Feeling victorious before a victory is actually achieved is just stupid. Any potential spring has long been trained out of his step. Still, he feels something of a rush. Everything is bright and clear, and he strides down the academy’s halls with renewed purpose. His classmates scurry to get out of his way. 

“Good news?” Uthra whispers to him. He shows her his back-and-forth with Motte, and tries not to think about how they look, colluding in corners with their heads together. People are staring. Uthra quickly banishes the message and makes a girlishly high-pitched noise of happiness. Now everyone’s staring, so everyone sees her kiss him on both cheeks. “Oh, it’s perfect!” she chirps. 

“… Good, then,” he mutters, and buries his face in his hands. People are laughing at him. Out of the corner of his eye he sees money changing hands. Seriously? He’s not sure he wants people to question their cover story, true, but there is no way it’s that believable. There is no way it’s that easy to con a school full of the First Order’s brightest young military minds. 

————

It’s exactly that easy to con a school full of the First Order’s brightest young military minds. It’s equally easy to con their teachers. Brendol gets all of one warning message from his father, suggesting that Uthra’s family is not prime material for a marriage alliance, and he should aim higher. It’s not a very strongly worded message, because most of the old Empire’s upper classes, most of those whose families would be worth allying with, are either old or dead, and Uthra’s family has weapons and money and a future. 

He writes back saying more or less as much. Uthra helps him pick tonal words and adjectives, because she knows what people who are in love sound like. At least she says she does. It sounds convincing, anyway. Brendol Hux II is every inch his father’s son, so he knows it’ll probably sound convincing to the Commandant as well. It’s not like he knows what love sounds like either. 

————

The academy is restricted airspace. Motte can’t access it without clearance, and if he tries he’ll be shot down. Brendol can’t get clearance for him, because you need confirmation from three different officials to get clearance and he can only pretend to be one of them. He gets clearance for himself and for Uthra, though, because the other officials approve of this hypothetical match rather more than the Commandant does. 

They get in the regulation shuttle, branded with the First Order emblem and the academy’s specific emblem and three different identifying markers, Brendol confirms that they’ll be returning with a different ship, Uthra blows a kiss to the guard, and they take off. No one stops them. No one seems to have considered stopping them. 

Viewed from above, the academy looks bigger than expected. It sprawls, really. Brendol frowns. Diseased things sprawl, weak things, chaotic things. The New Republic, he was told, sprawled over multiple systems. 

“Well,” mutters Uthra. “No point in doing this by halves.” Brendol has never done a thing by halves in his life and he’s certainly not about to start now. Neither is she, by the looks of things, because she gives the academy one more glance, sets her jaw, and puts in the coordinates of the meeting point. 

————

The man who meets them is dressed like a merchant prince and is flanked by elaborately dressed women. Once it’s clear that only Brendol and Uthra have come to meet them, the women drop the act and stand like the soldiers they are. 

“Sir,” says Brendol, for lack of anything better to say. Admiral Calrissian smiles at him.

“Cadet Hux,” he says politely. “And who is this lovely young lady?” 

“Cadet Uthra, sir,” Uthra mumbles. “He didn’t tell me who you are, sir.” The Admiral introduces himself, and Uthra curses for a solid two minutes in multiple languages. At Brendol. 

“There is no point doing this by halves,” he says when she’s finished, and the Admiral’s grin widens. “We can bring you into the academy. I’m sure you’ll find something of value in there. My father’s research, at least.” 

————

It’s at this point, staring Admiral Calrissian in the face on some freezing planetoid that somehow has more natural light than he’s seen in years, that Brendol Hux II realizes he doesn’t know his enemy in the slightest. He has no idea what the Resistance could possibly want. 

————

No one stops them on the way back in, either. The First Order fully deserves what it has coming for being that careless. Arrogance and carelessness can’t rule the galaxy. The Admiral’s soldiers knock out the guards with a well-trained efficiency. None of them have a chance to call for backup. Hate is for foot soldiers, officers have to keep a cool head, but Brendol hates them for this weakness with every fiber of his being. Someone should be stopping them. Someone should have noticed. Why doesn’t anyone notice?

He and Uthra lead the Admiral and his soldiers to the the sealed shut door. They don’t have enough passes, but Brendol smiles at the droid politely.

“They’re with me,” he insists. After a moment’s deliberation, the droid lets him through, lets all of them through. He wants to rip its head off of its metal carapace, but it’s not the droid’s fault. A Brendol Hux has probably brought unlicensed visitors through before. Uthra leads the soldiers to where the experimental classes are. The Admiral stays behind with Brendol, standing in front of the door to Commandant Hux’s office. 

“Cold feet, kid?” asks the Admiral. Brendol scoffs to cover up the fact that he doesn’t know what that means and knocks on the door. 

“Father?” he calls. There should be a quaver in his voice, there should be something, he should feel something besides cold purposefulness and bitter anger, but he doesn’t. “Father, may I come in?” The door opens. 

————

A note: Monsters aren’t born, they’re made. Whether they are built through action or inaction, whether they are the intended result or not, they are crafted by others and by the world. Some say they are crafted in part by the Dark Side itself. 

Commandant Brendol Hux is a product of his time and place, raised by a family that was deeply devoted to ideals in a galaxy that was run by liars and pragmatists. He is a familiar sort of monster, made special by his access to power. In a different place, he would only have moulded his son in his own image, but he has been given the opportunity to make his mark on many impressionable minds. That makes him more frightening than most of his ilk, but he is, at heart, much the same sort of thing as they. 

Another note: Every monster, at some point, choses to be monstrous. We are all the products of our times and places, we are all made into what we are, but we do not all chose monstrosity.

A scene: Commandant Hux opens the door and lets his son in, because he knows the boy has come to plead his pointless case. He considers letting the boy think he’s won this time, because he’s following the schedule perfectly otherwise. It’s good to allow the subjects a little bit of freedom, an irrelevant bit of freedom, because it makes them think they are free in all ways. The man who follows him in is probably the girl’s father. Commandant Hux spares him half a glance, notes exotic and mercantile regalia, and decides that this is a man of little consequence, the sort that can be bought and sold easily. 

“Here he is, sir,” says Commandant Hux’s son, and the man takes a step forward. 

“Commandant Brendol Hux?” he asks. His Basic is surprisingly proper and his hand is extended for a handshake. The Commandant obliges. 

“And who might you be?” he asks. The man has a strong grip and the cold, clear eyes of a wartime politician, and in that split second the Commandant realizes something is wrong. It’s a second too late, as a cold metal cuff closes on his wrist.

“I am Admiral Lando Calrissian,” says the man with a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “And I am arresting you in the name of the New Republic.”

A note: Commandant Brendol Hux learned warfare from men who commanded clone battalions. He looks past the Admiral and sees his own face, years younger, on his son and successor, and he thinks of those very same clone battalions now, because they had rebelled against their makers too. 

————

The academy goes down with barely a whisper. Most of the people there are trained to obey unquestioningly when they are given orders, and they do not rebel against their training. FN-2187, who asks where they’re being taken and moves to comfort a crying classmate, is an anomaly. 

The officers-in-training don’t whisper about what is happening because they have not been given anything to whisper about. They don’t know their enemy in the slightest. They only think they do. They don’t realize for good few hours that they have been captured by the Resistance. 

————

Admiral Calrissian is watching him closely. It’s sensible, to keep a close eye on a known traitor, especially one that commits treason so coldly. Brendol knows about people who turn traitor for passion, for love, for their families, for their consciences. Presumably Admiral Calrissian would be less wary of that sort of traitor. 

There isn’t any reason to be wary, though. He’s chosen his path. His father, now in a holding cell deep within the Admiral’s flagship, chose a path and loyally served the Empire and the First Order for decades and will continue to serve them, even in prison, even on trial. He is the sort of man who does not deviate from his chosen goal.

And Brendol Hux II is every inch his father’s son.


	9. Ben Solo (4)

The boy with the beautiful eyes is named Poe Dameron, and Ben is in deep trouble for attacking him. Poe himself has taken less issue with it than Ben’s mother has. Her eyes turn dark and stormy when she speaks to him, and her voice sounds like it comes from everywhere at once and drills itself into his bones and his blood. 

“Ben.” She takes his shoulders. Once, she had to bend to do that, and in the near future she’ll have to look up, up, up, but at this moment they’re roughly the same height and she can look him straight in the eyes. She doesn’t need to touch him to keep him pinned in place. “You are like me, do you understand?”

“Yes,” he lies, because he can’t talk like her and smile like her and make her proud like she must have made everyone in her family proud. She exhales shortly, and tries to contain the storm. 

“You and I, we both have been granted great power. It’s something we were born with, not something we earned.” She pauses, scrutinizing his face as though she’s looking for something, but he doesn’t know what she could be looking for. He’s sorry, he’s said a dozen times that he’s sorry. “Ben, listen to me.” He’s listening. He’s always listening.

“Yes?”

“We must never, ever in our lives use this power to hurt people.” She presses the words into his mind, engraves them on every rock of that half-built mental fortress. “To lash out from a place of power against those weaker than us is a wicked, Dark thing to do. What we have exists only to protect, to heal– if we can’t use it for that, we mustn’t use it at all.”

His mother rarely gives orders like that, Ben thinks dimly. The last one was years prior, when he’d snarled at his aunt in a blind rage that he did not want to have a little cousin– his mother had sat him down and told him in absolutes that his cousin was to be his family, and he had to love his family just like his mother loves him, deeply and unconditionally. He doesn’t resist this time either. He loves his cousin. Power is only to protect and heal, never to hurt. He’ll practice. He’ll learn. He’ll make her proud one day

————

A note: Leia Organa doesn’t just mean the Force when she speaks of power, because she is not and will never be a Jedi. The Force is not the beginning and end of all things, not for her, not for the princess of a destroyed world, the general of the Resistance. Names and statuses and families and institutions have power too, not just monks who have the Force in their blood. 

Another note: It’s a sign of the deep connection to the Force present in General Leia Organa that she manages to press that message so deep into his mind, far far deeper than any ghost or monster has gone and deeper than any will go. It’s a sign of her desperation, too, because she sees something she doesn’t want to recognize in her son’s pale, round face. 

Leia Organa had two families, two fathers, one a politician and one a Sith, and she is every inch her fathers’ daughter. 

She’s seen the Dark Side and felt its call, felt rage and hate and desperation, but she has seen other things as well. She’s seen the Senate rebuilt from blood and rubble, she’s seen children born on planets where their ancestors were slaughtered, and she knows sometimes you save people with love and sometimes you save them by being the loudest voice in a room. Sometimes it takes both. 

————

The whispering voice spends the next three days trying to work around that cardinal rule. It fails, mostly because Ben is the sort of person who lets himself get punched and pushed around just as much as he’s the sort of person who lets himself get manipulated. Fighting back isn’t his first instinct– fear yes, pain, anger, even, and those are things the Dark Side feeds upon, but it’s not his nature to turn those feelings outward. They boil and fester and eat him from the inside, but they stay there. 

————

It’s really a surprise when Ben’s father comes back with Uncle Chewie and Uncle Lando and a full squadron of soldiers. It looks like it really was Resistance business. They’ve brought back prisoners and recruits, which means Ben’s mother vanishes for hours on end to do paperwork and make sure no one is a spy. Ben runs out to meet his father and uncles, and it’s Uncle Chewie who sweeps him up and spins him around. He’s never going to be too big for Uncle Chewie to do that. It’s great. Ben loves his family. 

Ben’s father greets him warmly, but he’s so angry his hug nearly burns. Ben checks, careful not to do anything other than skimming the surface of their minds, and learns that he and Uncle Lando had a fight about someone who wanted to join the Resistance. Whoever it is, Ben’s father doesn't trust him and Uncle Lando wants to give him a ship and see what happens. It’s clearly up to Ben’s mother to decide, because whatever happened is a very big deal. 

“The biggest deal,” says Ben’s father, ruffling his hair. Uncle Lando grins.

“Biggest in a long time,” he agrees. 

Ben’s father is thinking about a vicious, evil man who hurt children but won't hurt anyone every again. Uncle Lando is thinking about buildings and maps and a planet with a sprawling military complex circling a dim sun. Somehow these are both the same thing. Uncle Chewie grumbles and sweeps Ben onto his shoulders. He’s thinking about children, frightened children in neat rows, but what they look like keeps changing. Uncle Chewie has seen a lot of frightened children in neat rows, and when he doesn’t pay attention they all end up having Ben’s face.

————

There really are children. They disembark from Uncle Lando’s ship in neat orderly rows and Ben isn’t sure if they are supposed to be recruits or prisoners. There’s a lot of whispering and a lot of thoughts that make no sense no matter how Ben pokes around, and the ghosts have nothing to say whatsoever. 

“They were probably the First Order’s prisoners,” says Poe Dameron sagely. He’s the center of attention anyway, and has graciously allowed Ben to lurk on the edge of the group and listen. “Bet there was a raid.”

“A raid on what, a school?” asks one of the girls. Her name is something with a J, Ben thinks, and she has a half-dozen nicknames and Force-heightened reflexes. Poe shrugs. Does the First Order even have schools? There is a general thought that it’s made up of old men who want to relive an earlier part of their lives. 

That information passes over Ben like water, because his mind has stopped on the thought that there was a raid on a school. He can see– something. Those aren't his hands, closed on a lightsaber, because he isn’t allowed to use one yet, and he doesn’t know the frightened children backing away from him, but he knows they’re going to die, he knows they died that day when there was a raid on a school.

When he comes back to himself he’s curled on the floor, tears streaming down his face, and Poe Dameron is leaning over him, looking concerned. That doesn’t help. Ben buries his face in his arms and bawls his heart out for a school full of ghosts he doesn’t know.

————

The man in black offers a lecture disguised as sympathy. Power should only be used to protect, to heal– he agrees that that’s a good motto for a Jedi. A pity the Jedi of the Old Republic didn’t hold to it. When Ben asks him about the school ghosts of children and the the hum of the lightsaber in someone else’s hands, the man in black goes silent for a full minute and then changes the topic. 

————

One of the not-prisoners-anymore finds them a few days later. Poe sees him lurking uncomfortably in the doorway and lopes over to shake his hand and treat him like a grownup, even though he has to crouch down to do that. The other boy is about five, tops, and looks at their faces too intently. All of this is new to him, and curiosity radiates off of him. Poe doesn’t have one particle of the Force in him, but he has empathy and kindness. 

“I’m Poe, and I’m going to be a pilot,” Poe says, and it’s almost unreal how genuine he is all the time. He doesn’t tell lies at all. Ben thinks this very loudly, because he can hear voices disagreeing. “What’s your name?” The boy mumble something mostly inaudible. Poe cocks his head. “Sorry, Fin–what?”

“Finn,” says the boy a little more forcefully. “My name is Finn. I’m supposed to go to the Jedi school.”

“That’s so cool,” says Poe sincerely. “You’re like them, then–“ He gestures. “Like Ben and Rey. Come on.” And he steers Finn – he hadn’t said Finn the first time, but that probably doesn’t matter – into the room and makes a big show of introducing him. Rey promptly shows him how to make strawberries hover. He thinks she’s wonderful. 

Everyone always thinks Rey’s wonderful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) So. Many. Cameos.
> 
> 2) Leia's random assortment of Force powers is based on a tumblr post that I can never find when I need it. If anything sounds oddly familiar, that's why. (If anyone can find it, link me it? It's the one where Leia makes people not be able to shoot straight and stuff.)
> 
> 3) I've tagged this "Headcanons Everywhere" and that's not a joke. I'm fully expecting to have at least 80% of my ideas proven wrong by the next movie, tbh. If anything seems Extremely Not Canon or just Extremely Not Likely (besides Hux betraying the First Order), let me know and I will try to fix it, okay?


	10. Brendol Hux II (5)

There is a surprising amount of bureaucratic busywork involved in changing sides in a war. Somehow the instructors at the academy had never touched on that. Brendol and Uthra are at least allowed to fill everything out together, which means they can catch each other’s mistakes. Uthra’s errors tend to include skipping over the question posed to her entirely, while Brendol, apparently, can’t stop sounding like a damaged recording of a First Order propaganda speech. They both upset the droids. Eventually they get passed along to a woman with graying hair braided into an elaborate pair of buns, and she looks at them and smiles with what looks like utmost sincerity.

“I am sorry about all of that,” she says, “But there is a standard protocol.” They nod. They know all about the importance of standard protocols. “Please sit.” She gestures at the comfortable-looking chairs and Uthra drops into one almost instantly. Brendol feels his knees weaken. He very much wants to sit, but something about the situation is setting of every single warning bell he has in his head. He stands behind the chair instead, leaning on it heavily. The woman raises her eyebrows. 

“It’s bad form,” Brendol mutters. “Sitting in the presence of a commanding officer.” Talking back is bad form too, but things like form and regulations only apply to people like Brendol Hux II when it’s convenient. 

“Even when invited?” she asks, sounding almost amused. The pressure, whatever it is, lessens. “Very well. I wouldn’t want you to be ill at ease.”

“All due respect, ma’am,” says Uthra. “But I think we’re going to be ill at ease for a pretty long time.” She’d been practicing talking like the Resistance soldiers the entire trip from the academy. Brendol had been practicing emoting. Neither one has been entirely successful. The woman’s expression softens all the more. 

“I quite understand,” she says. It takes that long for Brendol’s mind to get past her smile and her simple, civilian clothes and the the calming pressure on his mind in order to recognize her, and it puts his hackles up immediately. He’s seen holovids of General Leia Organa, and he only knows her in terms of politics and tactic and enemies. While those lessons don’t quite square with the pleasant-looking woman in front of him, his reaction is rather instinctual. She notices. 

There’s nothing to fear. Surely she won’t hurt them– with all that is said about the Resistance, they don’t seem to go for public executions, they don’t make examples of their prisoners. Somehow General Organa looked more imposing in the holovids; in person, she looks less like an officer and more like someone’s mother– What had that boy’s name been? Her son…?

Brendol jerks back with a yelp, because those impressions are not his impressions and those thoughts are not his thoughts. It’s entirely undignified– he trips on his own feet and takes the chair down with him.

“Hux!” Uthra is quick on her feet. She’s at his side almost as soon as he hits the ground and catches him by the shoulder with one hand, while her other hand flies to her waist, where she would under normal circumstances be carrying a blaster. General Organa is standing now, on the far side of her desk. From that angle, she looks much more like the officer from the holovids. The calming pressure on his mind, Brendol notes, is gone.

“Are you alright?” General Organa asks. It sounds like a genuine question, even if he doesn’t recognize the expression on her face. “I didn’t mean to startle you like that– perhaps I should have started with introductions? The two of you have had a long day.”

“You’re the general,” says Uthra. She sounds like she’s only just realizing this too. “General Organa.” She frowns. “You look taller in the holovids.”

“Most people do,” says General Organa. “I’ve never met anyone who is more imposing in person.”

“Not even a Jedi?” Brendol asks once he’s gotten his voice back, thinking of stories he’s heard of Jedi masters and Sith Lords in the Old Republic. General Organa laughs quietly. It’s an unexpectedly pleasant sound. 

“Especially not the Jedi,” she says. “I promise. Now…” She steps around her desk and personally rights the chair Brendol knocked over. “Please sit. Both of you.” They do. 

————

General Organa takes the opportunity to talk. She’s grateful, on behalf of the Resistance, that they have revealed the location of one of the First Order’s academies, and she makes particular mention of the experimental subjects. It’s a relief to her that they are now in the hands of the Resistance. 

“I only wish we had some more information about where those poor children came from,” General Organa says. “It will be difficult to track down their families, this way, but I promise that we will do everything we can.” 

“Do you think you will find them?” Uthra asks. Brendol doubts they will. His father was not above threatening the families of his cadets or his soldiers, and he learned warfare from Clone Wars generals. He wasn’t likely to have taken the subjects and left their families to plot revenge.

“If we can’t find their homes, we will find them new ones,” says General Organa firmly. “They deserve– they deserve lives.”

“FN-2187 is Force-sensitive,” Brendol blurts, as if that matters. “I… it should be in the file. I made a note.” The idea feels patently absurd now, notes and subject numbers and his father’s files. while General Organa talks about homes and lives. 

“Thank you,” she says, brushing his forehead with something both invisible and warm. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

————

It’s clear very quickly that they are not welcome on the Resistance base. General Organa isn’t lying; they are appreciated, or their contribution to the cause is, because it is a huge victory for the Resistance both militarily and politically. The New Republic has declared war, and the Resistance has full backing now. Still, their contributions do not make them welcome or liked. Brendol has seen that before, in the First Order. There, purity and superiority reign supreme, but even filthy money is money and even inhuman soldiers are soldiers. It’s a relief to know that the Resistance isn’t made of pure idealism either. 

It’s clear that no one is entirely sure what to do with them, either. There isn’t a standard protocol for dealing with traitors on this level, clearly. Brendol imagines that’s sensible– usually it’s unimportant people who change sides. It’s not difficult to integrate unimportant people, but trained officers of dubious morals are a different story entirely. 

So Brendol and Uthra exist in a sort of limbo while everything is sorted out around them. Their former classmates need reeducation, mostly. The younger cadets and the experimental subjects are spirited away to a secure location or several. The older ones cause more trouble for the Resistance, because they either believe in the First Order wholeheartedly or they simply believe in the First Order’s special brand of pragmatism, and either way it’s dangerous. Brendol watches and waits but none of them get arrested. None of them vanish. None of them are made an example of. Uthra begs asylum for her parents and gets it. She isn’t the only one. Deals are made. Rules are followed. The Resistance is surprisingly internally consistent. 

The New Republic plans extensive and public trials for Commandant Hux and his ilk, and broadcasts every piece of information collected from the academy to every affiliate planet, ship, and base. Knowledge is power, and the New Republic gives its power to the people. It is remarkably internally consistent as well. 

————

Admiral Calrissian summons Brendol and Uthra aboard his flagship, the Cloud Dreamer, after three weeks at the Resistance base. The Cloud Dreamer is half the size – if that – of the Citadel, which is the only other real flagship Brendol has seen, but it gleams. There are no forgotten halls and shadowy cells here; everything is illuminated and everything is used. The Admiral is waiting in for them. This time he’s in uniform rather than in his merchant disguise, but he still has a cape draped over his shoulder. It’s tasseled. Somehow he looks even more dramatic this way. 

“Glad you kids could make it,” he says pleasantly. As if there was a way to not make it, when an admiral called. “Sit down– or don’t, it’s not an order.” They sit. Uthra kicks her legs and watches Admiral Calrissian curiously. Brendol tries to watch everything at once, even though Admiral Calrissian has deigned to meet them in an empty, open room with windows so there isn't anything much to watch. The Admiral watches them, analyzes them. 

“What can we do for you, sir?” Brendol asks after nearly a minute of this. It’s giving him almost as much of a headache as General Organa’s mindtricks. 

“I’ve looked over your records,” says Admiral Calrissian. “Both of you. The First Order seemed to think you were worth a great deal.” It doesn’t sound like an insult when he says it, just like a fact.

“Do you agree, sir?” Brendol asks. He doesn’t pretend to not be arrogant. There’s no point to that, not now. Admiral Calrissian grins like this is exactly where he expected this conversation to go. 

“Well, they also say that your loyalty to the First Order is absolute, so perhaps they should not be taken entirely seriously,” he notes, then grins lazily. “However, my point is that I’ve read them, and I’ve seen you plot and commit high treason.” Brendol opens his mouth, but shuts it when the Admiral keeps talking. “Yes, kid, and I read your paper. I think it’s clever enough. Cleverness on paper, however, does not guarantee a good soldier.” There is another long moment of silence, this one even more tense. Uthra sits perfectly still. 

“We don’t have field experience,” she says carefully. These past weeks have included the longest consistent exposure to any sun Brendol has had in possibly his entire life. He’s pretty sure he’s not qualified to even talk about field experience.

“I know,” says Admiral Calrissian. He leans back, hands folded in front of him. “You were meant to get your commissions soon. I suppose the First Order won’t give you any now, but the point stands for now. General Organa can’t offer you anything like that either, since she doesn’t want people questioning what you’re allowed to access around base.” It’s sensible. Brendol hates it, but it’s sensible. 

“Yes, sir,” says Uthra softly. She probably hates it just as much as he does, if not more. 

“Mind, I don’t have the same laws to live by,” Admiral Calrissian continues. There’s something impossibly bright dancing in his eyes, and Brendol can’t look away. He probably also shouldn’t look away, because eye contact is professional. “So, I’m offering you two a shot. The Santalarat departs for a reconnaissance mission in the Unknown Regions next week. Your familiarity with the area would be a benefit to the crew.” The admiral leans forward suddenly, so sharply it feels like a gravitational shift. “Are you in?” 

This time there isn’t a long and uncomfortable silence, because despite everything else they are and everything else they could be, they’re so very young still; nothing can beat youthful arrogance and ambition out of someone, not the First Order, not the Jedi Council, not a young life spent in toil, not a history of disaster, not debts and bets and not prophecies, never prophecies. They sign everything he hands them, entirely sure of their newly-minted future. 

Brendol is too young to know that Admiral Calrissian looks at them, at puppy-round faces and ambitious eyes, and thinks of his own past, of the grandson of a disgraced governor and the runaway son of a nobody who thought they could take on the galaxy even as the Old Republic collapsed around their heads, of a boy with a round face and ambitious eyes plotting the shortest course through the Kessel Run, of the promise of an open sky. 

Brendol Hux II is every inch his father’s son, and as such it is possible he will never know the full extent of what the admiral is thinking, the full beauty of the promise of the open sky. He does know, however, that Admiral Calrissian is a gambler, and that it’s always best to have authority figures on your side. 

“We won’t let you down, sir,” he says. Admiral Calrissian smiles a politician’s smile and replies:

“I’m betting on that.”


	11. Ben Solo (5)

It’s the last day before they go back to Uncle Luke’s– Ben and Rey and now Finn too – and the entire base is humming with energy and busyness. There are broadcasts from the New Republic and from Ben’s mother about a major victory over the First Order– the New Republic is now officially at war with it, too. Ben thought it had been before, too, actually, but it’s not the first time he’s completely wrong about the technical details of political things and he doubts it will be the last. He spends the day packing. 

When he sees a flash of red hair on the base outside his window his heart lodges in his throat. The next instant, the image is gone without a trace. There are people everywhere, but the humans tend towards dark hair and eyes and the aliens tend towards looking not like humans. The longer he looks, the more sure he is that his mind is playing tricks on him, his mind or one or more of the whispering ghosts. The whispers in his head want him to go outside, go down to the ships, follow, follow, follow but he screws his eyes shut and clamps his hands over his ears and prays for a rescue instead. 

————

The man in black loves love almost as much as Uncle Luke does. Uncle Luke thinks love is what allows a Jedi to be at one with the Force, and that love allows people to band together and amplify the light within themselves. The man in black says love is power, that true love is an endless, boundless reserve of something you can draw upon even in the darkest of times. 

Love, then, must only be used to heal and protect, never to hurt, Ben thinks, though he isn't sure how love can be used to hurt. To hear Uncle Luke tell it, love is the Light. When he asks the man in black, he’s greeted with silence and an abrupt change of topic once again. Ben is too young to know that there is light and darkness in all things, not just the Force as an abstract concept, and that while one’s emotions, desires, and actions are all interconnected, they are not always connected in a simple straight line. 

Uncle Luke has his youngest students – it’s quite an age range, from Rey, who’s absolutely tiny to to Lessri, who’s going on fourteen standard years – sit in a circle and list the things they love. There are ordinary things listed, like homes and pets and mothers and fathers and siblings and cousins – and oh, Ben loves his family more than the galaxy, more than the universe, more than anything – and then there are sillier things, like colors and corners and the texture of Temmit’s mother’s clothes. 

“Flying!” Rey chirps. “I love flying!” There is a general murmur of agreement. Temmit is scared of heights, but doesn’t say anything. The newest student, Finn, is dubious, because he’s only flown on transport vessels– one to get to the base, another to get to the school – but he grins widely.

“Yeah, me too,” he says. “Flying. We should go flying–” He cuts that thought off in the middle, caught in a sudden wave of fear that makes him sit too stiffly and stare at his hands. “I- I mean, if that’s allowed, sir.” Uncle Luke instantly assures him that of course it’s allowed, he has a whole set of old fighters and racers that he’d gladly take them up in, and really, Finn, there’s no need to be so formal. That’s true. No one calls Uncle Luke sir. Most of the students call him uncle, actually. 

They’re all Uncle Luke’s family. Every single students who enters into his domain is his child, his niece, his nephew, his sister, his brother. Ben is right on the borderline of realizing that, of realizing that Uncle Luke offers this makeshift family the same eternal, undying, vehemently protective and all-forgiving love that he offers those who share his blood. 

“There is no power in this,” the voice in Ben’s ear insists, but it’s wrong. It’s wrong because Ben can see – or as good as see, anyway – the boy’s fear fading away. It fades slowly, and it always spikes again for some reason or another but each time it’s less and less and little spark of hope inside him grows, and there is a power in that. It’s a slow power and a quiet power, one used to protect and to heal, but that does not make it worth any less than the power to destroy. Those are his mother’s lessons, and Ben is every inch his mother’s son. 

A note: The owner of the voice in Ben’s ear is no idiot. In fact, it is wiser than most, in some sense of the word wisdom. It has seen the Dark be used to create, and it has seen Light triumph through destruction. It knows that the power to change minds is worth more than the power to kill; it is that very power that it wields for itself, after all. It plays long games, and any number of combinations of moves can yield the same result.

“In moving minds? Yes, there is power in that,” it concedes, and watches Ben smile to himself. “But that power stems from the Force, from pushing and pulling at someone’s consciousness to change and mould it into something better. The Jedi have always had a knack for it. That is a power, yes, but it has nothing to do with love.” It pauses, surveying its work, and decides to add garnish. “How else do you think your mother became a general at such a young age?”

————

Ben loves his family more than the galaxy, more than life itself. When he starts looking, starts researching, he’s doing it entirely to prove the voice in his ear wrong. It’s gone quiet, now, and Ben thinks he’s winning because he’s thirteen and wouldn't know a long game from a lightsaber. 

He can access the Resistance’s archives easily, and he reads everything that has the name Organa in it. 

His mother had become a princess at the whim of a Jedi knight, had become a senator at eighteen, had become a hero of the Rebel Alliance in a matter of a few months, and had somehow managed to hide her blatant association with the Rebel Alliance for over a year. She had survived a ridiculous number of assassination attempts, being captured by Darth Vader, two different Death Stars, the fall of the Empire, multiple wars, the rocky rise of the New Republic… The list just keeps going on. Ben’s mother is very good at not dying, and everyone loves her and sings her praises. 

Ben is old enough to know what sort of a cycle that is. Everyone loves her, so she leads them well, so everyone loves her and calls her a hero and she gets rank stripes on her coat and the loyalty of everyone in or near the Resistance. He knows his mother has earned every rank and every follower

–but how can he be entirely sure, given he wasn’t there to see it –

and that Uncle Luke, at least, can give him the details he needs to fill in the blanks. 

————

Uncle Luke always has stories to tell. When he talks about faraway planets, Ben feels almost like he’s there himself. Uncle Luke says he picked up that trick from his own teacher, from Obi-Wan Kenobi. That’s probably true, because somewhere in the archives Ben had read is a mention of General Kenobi’s skill with Jedi mind tricks. Uncle Luke says he doesn’t like to use those, because he doesn't like the idea of making people do things they wouldn’t do for themselves, but nothing prevents him from planting images and sounds and scents into people’s minds. Uncle Luke does it. Ben’s mother does it. Everyone probably does it. They just make sure they’re doing it for people’s benefit. He could do it too, surely, as long as he’s doing it to protect people, to help people, to put things right. 

That’s a conclusion Ben reaches more or less on his own. True, the ghosts that follow him around are there the whole time, hissing and grabbing and whispering and sniggering, and true, the voice in his ear prompts him with questions – but isn’t that what teachers are supposed to do? it’s what all of his teachers have always done… – for him to answer, and true, the man in black gladly rages against mind tricks and manipulation, but really, at the heart of it, Ben has reached the conclusion on his own. 

He thinks it’s one of the few conclusions he’s managed to reach on his own in his entire life, perhaps even the first one. In that he is partially correct, because he has reached very few of his own conclusions in his short lifetime. This, however, is not one of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry Ben, the road to Snoke-removal is long and complicated. The next Ben chapter is going to introduce yet another force (heh) trying to push him around.


	12. Brendol Hux II (6)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was saved as "Huxie has a life skill!!" in my notes.

The Santalarat looks like a merchant ship and flies no Resistance colors. Its captain has four arms, greenish skin, and the ability to swap between at least six accents in five languages without batting a heavily-lidded eye. She regards Brendol and Uthra with undisguised curiosity, and Brendol isn’t sure if he should be disgusted or curious right back. 

“A bit underwhelming for traitors, aren’t you?” she says, then … he assumes it’s an approximation of a sigh. “No wonder everyone wants you out of Lady General’s hair. Now, if you’re not good at maps, cannons, or lying, I’m sending you back to Admiral Calrissian. Possibly in pieces.” She certainly looks like she could rip a human being limb from limb with her bare hands. 

“Cannons?” Brendol asks cautiously. Maps are the same wherever one is, as long as one accounts for different names and alphabets, and he has proven his ability to lie, at least to idiots, but cannons, now cannons can be something interesting. The captain grins, all teeth. 

“You know something about weapons?” she asks.

————

Brendol knows weapons only in a theoretical sense. He’s seen plans and schematics for everything the First Order has, but he’s never gotten to handle anything outside of a sim. That, possibly, was to the detriment of the First Order, because he has a rare talent. He doesn’t see his own eyes light up as Captain Drakki explains power levels and talks him and Uthra through the use of the Santalarat’s complicated and undoubtedly unique weapons system. Uthra’s taking notes with an ease born of years of practice, so she doesn’t notice either, but Captain Drakki does. She peppers her explanation with technical details and is pleasantly surprised when they follow along without any difficulty. She’ll make mention of that in her report to the Admiral.

————

The Santalarat flies reconnaissance missions regularly. The missions and her captain are the ship’s only constants. She has a good cover– Captain Drakki looks and can talk like a smuggler, and smugglers aren’t expected to keep the same people around for years. The First Order is aware of her, in a distant and uncaring way. Officially, they don’t have time to waste on smugglers, least of all stupid and inhuman ones. Unofficially, they’re a good source of business, even the stupid and inhuman ones. Captain Drakki has once shaken hands with Commandant Hux’s personal pilot and wished him and his master luck in capturing any spies who crossed their path. She has quite an impressive sabacc face herself. 

This mission is not any different from any that came before it. The Santalarat is loaded with somewhat illicit cargo and then she flits more-or-less gracefully through unknown space, docking where convenient and plotting a course as she goes. She takes a different route each time she travels; this time she is pursuing a suggestion that the First Order is amassing troops near Munlali Mafir, which means taking a long loop through the system and chatting up military suppliers. Uthra hands over a list of her family’s old contacts. Brendol scowls over maps and hypotheticals, tells Captain Drakki what he does know about the First Order’s movements, and agrees that Munlali Mafir seems like the exact sort of place a certain sort of First Order commander would pick. Not his father, his father liked his bases cold and dark – prison must suit him – but Adelphius Tarkin has recently been promoted to Grand General, and should be looking to prove himself.   
————

A note: Commandant Hux, despite an assortment of personality flaws rose to power more or less on his own merits. His ancestors could be fairly described as staunch military officers, but they were not lords or governors or generals themselves. Commandant Hux was a rarity among the First Order’s upper class. Most of it is made up of the likes of Adelphius Tarkin– sons and nephews of nobles who had garnered the favor of Emperor Palpatine. Their greatest skills have to do with names. 

Adelphius Tarkin himself, newly-minted Grand General of the First Order, is not a deeply intelligent man. His uncle, the late Grand Moff, was generally considered a competent strategist; it is very easy to criticize military moves from an armchair two decades later, but Grand Moff Tarkin had a great many successes under his belt. Grand General Tarkin is vicious and cruel, and like many of his fellows thinks that the Death Star’s sole flaw was having too little firepower. He mainly favors the ancient strategy of throwing soldiers at his enemy indiscriminately, though occasionally he seems to prefer to shoot with everything he has and celebrate before the smoke has cleared. He got his position not due to any particular talent, besides his estimable mindless obedience to the Supreme Leader, but mostly due to the dearth of other possible candidates. 

————

They don’t make it to Munlali Mafir. 

The Santalarat docks on a nearby moon, and Captain Drakki and her people trade for credits, weapons, fuel, and stories. Most of the deals are done over alcohol and in a dialect that comes naturally from the lips of those who have spent too long in this line of work. Brendol keeps his head down because he can’t shake his First Order accent and he doesn’t know how to play Captain Drakki’s game. It’s better to watch and learn. Uthra, now Uthra’s something of a natural. She can’t pick up the proper phrasing and cadence, but she certainly grasps the spirit of the situation. Brendol sits mutely at her side as she giggles and bats her eyes at a blue-skinned smuggler with tattoos in an unfamiliar script; he doesn’t like the First Order and considers them interlopers and fools, but he doesn’t know much about what they’re doing. 

“You see,” he drawls, leaning over the bar, his red eyes narrowing. “The First Order, the Republic all of them? They’re obsessed with the past. They don’t know how to look forward, and forward is the only way we are going.”

“Is that an us-we or a you-we?” Uthra asks innocently. The blue-skinned man chuckles, low and harsh, but before he has a chance to answer an alarm goes up outside and he very nearly throws himself out the door. 

No one in this particular den of thieves thinks well of the First Order, Brendol realizes significantly too late, and the First Order, still reeling from their unexpected betrayal, will not tolerate dissent, even from the unimportant. 

They're being fired upon from above. Brendol recognizes the light First Order strike ships and the colors they're flying - he was right, they're definitely Tarkin's men - at a glance. He has a brief, stupid impulse to wave them off, identify himself- Tarkin, you fool, firing on your own allies! - but that would only make things worse. He's the enemy now, likely high on the list of traitors and wanted criminals that's sent out to all officers on a weekly basis, and Grand General Tarkin is the sort of man who'd blow up a star destroyer to kill one stowaway. Brendol knows that because he's the same sort of person. Most of the officers of the First Order are the same sort of people. 

Captain Drakki takes command of the situation handily, barking orders and sending people scurrying for ships and for safety. She's using a different accent now, different words and a different cadence, sharper and louder and easier to obey. Brendol shoves people in the right direction, his mind a whirl of personnel files and point values. Most of the Santalarat's crew makes it aboard without a hitch. Most. 

The ship starts to move while Brendol has one foot on the ground, but he throws himself aboard at the last second. A second after that, he realizes something is wrong. The Santalarat is missing her captain. 

On the ground, getting rapidly further away, Captain Drakki is directing stragglers and Uthra is half-carrying the blue-skinned man, who is bleeding from a wound on his side. Brendol’s blood runs cold, less out of empathy or fear and more out of nine years of not wanting to lose points in combat and disaster sims. They can’t go back, not enough of an angle, not enough time, so there has to be another way. There's always another way. 

The First Order fighters are coming in low, swooping in and shooting in waves. It's a simple pattern, one that's been used entirely too many times, and it suggests they have no real target. They're not looking- not at the escaping ships, not at the buildings, not for inconsistencies. And that’s a common, stupid weakness. Brendol rushes to the bridge and grabs Captain Drakki's lieutenant by the shoulder. It's irrelevant at the moment that the shoulder is covered in chitin rather than human skin.

"Can we get above them?" he asks. The lieutenant probably grins. It's tough to tell. The important thing is that she(?) nods brings the Santalarat into a rapid ascent. 

————

The Santalarat's weapon system wasn't built for open warfare. It was, however, built to do a lot of damage and make a lot of noise with a single hit, and it succeeds at doing just that. The First Order fighters break formation in a panic, and moments later the Santalarat has a moon station's worth of angry and armed backup. Whoever is commanding this squadron makes the executive decision to cut and run, and the Santalarat fires after them for good measure before returning to land. 

Brendol makes a mental note that Grand General Tarkin's men care for their own skins far more than they care for their cause of their orders. Good. It’s pleasant to have confirmation for that. 

————

Captain Drakki is injured– a bolt from one of the fighters took a chunk of her shoulder clear out – but she waves off her crew’s concerns. The bolt had been aimed at her chest. Uthra, apparently, had pulled her to relative safety. Uthra herself is shaken but unharmed. The blue-skinned man is unconscious but alive. They’re all alive. 

Full marks, Brendol thinks. He catches Uthra’s eye and smiles, and she loops her arm through his and rests her head on his shoulder.

“Regular heroes, aren’t we?” she mutters. “Someone’s proud of us, I’m sure.”

They stick the blue-skinned man in a bacta tank and patch up Captain Drakki’s shoulder, and bask in the admiration and mutual backslapping of their newfound allies. Captain Drakki gets a whole long list of new contacts who are willing to do business with her and anyone whom she recommends. She still doesn’t mention the Resistance, but she does mention a human employer. No one minds that, though jokes are made at length about humans and their need for fancy titles even in the least fancy jobs. Hux is not entirely sure what sort of response he should have to the mental image of Lando Calrissian, Smuggler King, so he hangs on to Uthra and pretends he’s mute.

————

At sixteen, Brendol Hux II is almost grown. Almost. He still has a great deal to learn, a great deal of data to collect, a few more cardinal rules and cardinal sins to add to his mental rulebook, yes, and he is still in the process of fully developing the part of the brain that is responsible for logical judgement in humans, yes, but he is trained and polished and has seen his first military skirmish. He’s too old to entirely change his ways, for the most part to old to even change the fundamentals of his ideals. Some people manage to be exceptions to that rule, but those are people who are from the beginning capable of a fundamental change of any sort, and he is not. He is every inch his father’s son, with everything that entails, even as a traitor.


	13. Ben Solo (6)

Ben doesn't like confrontations. That's one of the reasons he's so easy to manipulate. Faced with pressure, any pressure, he bends and bows and cries and doesn't fight. The voice in his ear insists he should fight, should struggle, should reach out and snatch his freedom before it can be stolen away from him completely, but he doesn't know how to even begin doing that. He loves his family. He could never hurt his family. The voice in his ear sits him down and explains that that sort of love is weakness, but he doesn't know any other sort of love. 

Uncle Luke can see that something is troubling him. Ben doesn't want to talk about it, so Uncle Luke suggests meditation instead. Uncle Luke always suggests meditation, because to him the Force is like calm water and cool night air, and he doesn't know that it's full of fire and storms to his nephew. 

Neither one of them thinks, not for a moment, that it's fire and storms to Leia Organa too, like her father before her. Luke Skywalker, Chosen One, hero, Grandmaster of the New Jedi, will go to his grave convinced, against all odds, that he is ordinary. Ben will go to his own convinced that he is unique. 

Still, Ben doesn't argue and instead sits down and tries to focus on nothingness and not on the annoying suggestion that nothingness becomes somethingness the longer you try to envision it. He closes his eyes and thinks about trees with roots that go on forever and of fire and of calm oceans with monsters hiding just beneath the surface and of empty space between stars. His father charted routes through the dark and feared no monsters, but Ben is his father's son only in the most limited sense, and as such he has to be guided. 

He drifts, now, through ghostly thoughts and memories and dreams. None of them belong to him, though some belong to the same creature as does the voice in his ear. Distantly, vaguely, he can see flashes of people he recognizes- his grandfather, with the mask and the coldly modulated voice, or the man in black, young and vibrant in his fury. There's a girl too, beautiful and sad and dying in the man in black's arms, but Ben can't see her face. 

He rather wants to. That's a conclusion he really does reach all by himself, and the decision to push past the image of her death because maybe she'll be easier to see alive is all his own too. 

A note: Each of us makes decisions. Sometimes our decisions mean little to nothing. Sometimes the smallest ones have grand ramifications; after all, the galaxy was once saved because a someone needed an extra pair of hands at harvest. 

Ben chases the memory of the dying girl back, back, back through someone else's dreams. She's more beautiful when she smiles, when she laughs, when she lives- he still can't see her face, but the further back he hunts the more sure he is that she is beautiful, was so beautiful that she could outshine any star. He finds her in the beginning, ethereal and out of place in a sea of sand. She's smiling at a boy. Ben gets a brief impression of of a crushing weight on his shoulders, and then he's tumbling back further because he doesn't know how to stop anymore. There is a blinding flash of something unrecognizable, and then-

Silence. 

Absolute, complete silence, unbroken even by the slightest whisper. 

Ben blinks. This is something akin to nothingness, he thinks, before he notices that he isn't alone. There is a man in a dark cloak hunched over something that shimmers and glows beneath his spindly fingers. Even as he watches, the man in the dark cloak pauses and turns his head. His eyes shine beneath his hood as he draws himself up to his full height. 

He looks down at Ben and smiles a smile of recognition, holds out a hand gently. Ben can feel cool fingertips brush against his jaw and up his forehead, brushing his hair away- it's an almost affectionate gesture, soft and painless. 

The man's mouth opens, as if he means to break that numb silence, but even as he does that Ben feels himself being yanked away, out of the dark room with the shimmering light and down 

down 

down 

down 

spiraling into nothingness 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not gonna tag Ben's new... 'friend', but I hope you'll be able to guess who he is!


	14. Luke Skywalker (Interlude 2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FFFFFFFFF I can't write Luke worth crap I am so very sorry

It’s a perfectly ordinary day until Luke feels the disturbance ripple through his school. It knocks his students off balance, painfully so, and it leaves Rey curled on the ground crying, and Luke thinks that the worst part is that he can’t identify the source. 

That is not the worst part. 

The worst part is rounding a corner with his sobbing daughter in his arms to find his nephew lying on the ground still and silent and unreachable– dead, that’s his first though, but Ben is breathing shallowly. The air around him is thick with wrongness like smoke. Rey takes one look at him and starts to scream.

————

Ben wakes, hours later, but there is a distance in his eyes that wasn’t there before. He blinks up at Luke for almost a full minute before any spark of recognition appears, and even then it’s in his strangely clouded Force presence, not in his face. 

“Ben,” Luke says for what feels like the thousandth time. The boy’s gaze flickers left and right– towards the other students, and there’s a distinct notion of confusion there – before fixing on Luke again.

“Uncle…?” he whispers hoarsely. “What… where am I?” 

————

Ben doesn’t remember– there are whole chunks of things he doesn’t remember, and larger chunks still that he has to struggle to remember. He has few friends among the students, true, something Luke has always tried in vain to remedy, but to see him fumble for Rey’s name is heartbreaking. Seeing Rey, who was always the first to jump to her cousin’s defense, who trusts implicitly, shying away from him is frightening, and there are few things left in the galaxy that Luke Skywalker truly fears. 

A note: People fear what they do not understand, and understanding is a core tenet of the Jedi code. Councils and institutions rarely value things like understanding and compassion properly, but the Jedi were people before they were an institution and now, for now, they are people again. It took two Skywalkers to bring that about, two variations upon the theme of a Chosen, but somehow people remain surprised that it happened. There will always be Chosen, there will always be Darkness, there will always be Empires that rise and fall and Republics that bloom and collapse upon themselves and there will always be people and institutions. Such is the way of the Force.

Back to these Skywalkers, however. Luke is a person, a Jedi but foremost a person, and he is very much afraid of what has come to pass. He calls his sister, who is furious, because fear leads to anger and her anger is as finely-wrought as a lightsaber. Her eyes narrow in the holoprojection, and neither of them know she looks a spitting image of their father at that moment. The Force ghosts of Jedi are placid and at peace, and Anakin Skywalker did die a Jedi, after all. 

“Luke,” she says, very quietly. She doesn’t accuse or threaten, and as she exhales her fury fades in a sort of cold resignation. “Bring my son home. Now.”

————

Luke spends half the flight back to Yavin IV meditating. Ben watches the stars blur by at lightspeed like he can see each one. He can see each one, Luke realizes, when he brushes cautiously against the boy’s consciousness. The thought is hidden behind what feels like smoke, but he can see each one and he’s amazed by how beautiful they look. 

None of that makes sense. He shouldn’t be able to see them– no one, no living thing that Luke is aware of can see them – and the smoke, the smoke, where had it come from? Ben had always had a mind that broadcasted half his thoughts and all his feelings at the top of its metaphorical lungs. That was how, presumably, whatever had tried to kidnap him before had found him. 

Has it found him again? As soon as the thought crosses Luke’s mind he knows it’s not right. That thing, the Darkness that clings to Ben – or clung to him, rather, it’s held back by the smoke even more than Luke is – is an active thing, choosing, pushing, pulling. It’s like everything he knows about the Sith. This, whatever did this to Ben seems entirely passive; it’s wrapped around him like some sort of metaphysical blanket. 

A blanket? That doesn’t seem quite right. Luke exhales slowly and tries to visualize a separation between Ben and whatever it is that is generating the smoke. He can separate out voices and ghosts that way, but he can pull this away from his nephew despite his best efforts. It doesn’t fight him, and it doesn’t grab and cling, but trying to catch hold of it is like trying to catch someone’s breath out of the air. 

Ben keeps staring out at the blur of stars with childish fascination, but the smoke shifts, slightly as if it is aware of and reacting to Luke’s movements. For a moment, he can see a dark room far away and he knows someone is about to do something terribly, awfully important, but then the vision is gone and the smoke resettles, wrapping around Ben’s shoulders and settling lightly about his head. 

Something, somewhere, is sorry it can do so little now. Once it had been so powerful, and now it can do so very little. Small things have value, Luke assures it. The Force is in everything. He’s not sure if it can hear him. 

————

Ben doesn’t struggle to recognize his mother. He lights up at the sight of her, even if he doesn’t smile properly, and tumbles down the ramp to meet her with his smoky shadow on tow. Leia hugs him tightly and presses a kiss to the top of his head. The smoke parts, briefly, to let her. Whatever it is, this once-powerful thing, whatever it was, it has learned small mercies in its weakness. 

“I’m sorry,” Ben mumbles. “I don’t remember … I don’t remember what happened, I’m sorry.” Leia holds him tighter still. 

“It’s alright, it’s alright,” she murmurs. “As long as you’re alright, it’s alright, it doesn’t matter now.”

————

Leia pulls Ben from the school. It’s to be expected. Ben doesn’t argue, which is less expected. He sits quietly and nearly clings to his mother, fear twisting the Force around him. As Leia talks, her son pulls the smoke closer around himself. It is like a blanket in that sense.

Luke promises to keep checking in on them. He’s not sure what else he can do. He returns to the school and spins a vague but Force-laced story about Ben being ill to his worried students, and meditates. Obi-Wan is just as confused as he is. Yoda thinks it has to do with the balance of the Force. Anakin mutters that there’s trouble in their blood, but the others speak over him. He hasn’t much to say anyway.


	15. Brendol Hux II (7) (Timeskip)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha, sorry for leaving you on a Ben-related cliffhanger, there. He'll be back in the next chapter, promise.

Brendol turns seventeen aboard the Santalarat, mapping locations and troop movements. The chatter among Captain Drakki's informants is that Tarkin is hunting a Resistance spy who disrupted his soldiers's drills. Everyone has a good laugh about it. 

They are, and they remain, far away from Yavin IV and from Luke Skywalker’s school. No one aboard the Santalarat even knows where the latter is. 

————

He's seventeen, too, when Uthra suggests that they should grow their hair out together. He's too flummoxed by the fact that hers is a cloud of little curls when it isn't gelled down to say anything except yes. 

————

He's almost eighteen, and just done with his fifth mission aboard the Santalarat and eighth one overall, when his father is supposed to stand trial for his crimes. Brendol bothers Admiral Calrissian until he gets assigned to Hoth for two months. Commandant Hux is found guilty on all counts the day after his son's eighteenth birthday. 

————

He's still eighteen, after two months on Hoth and another six on planets with actual sunlight, when a Twi'lek captain looks him over and laughs. 

"Hux, huh?" she says. "Well, you don't look like an impy." She's right, he doesn't, not with Resistance patches on his jacket and a face peppered with freckles and hair so long it nearly brushes his shoulders. It still comes as a bit of a shock. 

————

He's a week past his nineteenth birthday, on yet another tour with the Santalarat, when he meets the girl. She has an ice-blue tint to her skin and a shock of white hair, and she is standing at the head of a small squadron of First Order soldiers. 

"You're with the Santalarat?" she asks, over-enunciating the name. Brendol glances over at Captain Drakki, and she nods. 

"That's right. You're looking for us, are you?" Captain Drakki's voice carries an Outer Rim drawl. The girl nods decisively. Captain Drakki grins and rests two of her hands on her blasters. "My. Hope we're not in trouble."

"You aren't smugglers," says the girl firmly. "I thought not. I'm glad I was right." She hesitates, glances back, but her squadron remains stone-faced. Brendol thinks they're all part Chiss, like she is; they're all varying shades of blueish. 

"Glad?" Brendol prompts. The girl nods again. 

"I... Well, you work neither for the First Order nor the Ascendancy, so we are defecting," she says plainly. "We will not die for slavers and the Supreme Leader. We surrender to you and your superiors, whoever they may be."

Her name, at least among humans, is Phasma, and Admiral Calrissian is happy to have her, her soldiers, and the fifteen two-person fighters they defected with. The Santalarat comes home early. 

————

At twenty-one, Brendol is beginning to cut a familiar figure on the Resistance's away bases. Uthra has the requisite charisma to win over wary Resistance officers, so she's well-liked enough, but Brendol has to settle for being familiar. It's good enough. He's not stupid enough or arrogant enough to think he was particularly well-liked at the academy either. Anyway, he doesn't need to be liked to be allowed to tinker with weapons. He just needs to be good at it. 

In another universe, in another life, Brendol would be in the midst of a meteoric rise through the ranks of the First Order, plotting and planning and in his spare moments dreaming up a weapon that could devour stars. This is not that universe, and Brendol has no coat tails to ride to power, but he is much the same man; he plots and plans and earns his promotions and sketches as-yet impossible engines on napkins in cantinas. No one will call him Starkiller, here, but there are other paths to eternal glory.  

————

At twenty-two, he learns how to fly a fighter. It's a little different from what he's used to, and going back to Yavin IV is certainly discomfiting, but it's necessary. His new assignments hinge less on lying and more on flying, and the last he's seen the Santalarat has Phasma and four of her half-Chiss soldiers on board and a mission that involves a language unsuited to human tongues.

The man who teaches him to fly works for General Organa and makes no less than seven references to a feud between their commanders. He seems to think that General Organa will win it. Brendol only ponders it for a moment before jumping to his admiral's defense. 

General Organa's man is an ace pilot, but Brendol can short his fighter's engines with his eyes closed. A draw is called before either one does lasting damage, though not before the pilot's BB unit lights Brendol's pants legs on fire. 

————

His next mission lasts almost a year. He almost dies twice and manages to break his nose in an uninhabited part of a parched and uncivilized planet. It heals crooked before he manages to find civilization or his crew, but he looks all the less imperial for it. He saves the lives of several members of the crew and leads the capture of several battleships. He reports back in blaze of glory. 

————

At twenty-four, Brendol Hux II makes captain. Admiral Calrissian personally promotes him and gives him charge of a gutted First Order starship, one he recognizes as part of his last haul. There's still a hole in the hull. 

"She's all yours," says Admiral Calrissian with a crooked grin. "I imagine you'll have fun fixing her up." It's quite possible he knows that Brendol's fingers are itching under his gloves. 

Brendol doesn’t know that Admiral Calrissian sees him smile as he turns back to his prize. It’s a hungry, cruel expression, one that doesn’t mirror his father’s skilled false joviality. The admiral is some fifty years too young to know that it does mirror the expressions of another young man with red hair and downcast eyes, quiet but vicious and voraciously bloodthirsty, another young man who turned on his own father and followed a stranger and sought to hold the galaxy in his grip. 

————

Brendol also doesn't know there's a pool going about how he'll name the ship. He'd be surprised to know how accurate some of the guesses are, actually, but he's busy repairing and redesigning and commissioning parts. He has half a wall of designs of impossible engines and a growing list of Uthra's contacts, and he is going to change the galaxy. 

It's a step down from ruling it, true, but you gain a bit of perspective with age. If Admiral Calrissian were fifty years older or capable of speaking to Force ghosts, he would have bet on the name Sidious.

————

He names the ship the Deception and grins when Admiral Calrissian and the others laugh. They can laugh all they want- the name is an apt one. 

The Deception is loaded with a dozen different types of weapons, two different cloaking devices, multiple levels of shields, and more secret compartments than a smuggler's rig, and can change the colors it flies with the flick of a switch. And that's not even touching on the engine. 

Maybe he's giving Admiral Calrissian too little credit, because when the jokes and back-slapping are through with he pauses and puts a hand on Brendol's shoulder. 

"It's a good name," he says. "You'd better make sure she lives up to it."

"Yes, sir." Brendol is entirely capable of that. Even hurtling at lightspeed down a different path, he is every inch his father's son. 

"Good," says Admiral Calrissian. "Keep on making me proud, kid." 

Brendol is twenty-four when he decides it would be perfectly sensible to follow Admiral Calrissian off the edge of a map if he were to ask. 


	16. Ben Solo (7) (Timeskip)

Ben Solo, age thirteen, blacks out from a vision at his uncle’s school. The Ben Solo who wakes up to panic and noise is something slightly different. His vision is somehow sharper and fogged at the same time, and his mind drifts around half the planet before he registers that someone is calling his name. 

He’s thirteen when his mother pulls him from the school and swears she will never lose sight of him again. She loses sight of him every night, when his dreams drag him, frightened and fighting, from one end of the galaxy to the other. 

————

He’s barely fourteen, wrapped in smoke and his mother’s blankets, when he figures out how to tell each presence he dreams of apart. They shine and blur like stars at lightspeed, but once he figures out that they are separate he can see them as such. Each one has a breath, a pulse, a voice, billions upon billions of them. He should, possibly, be afraid, but he looks upon them with unabated wonder. 

He is never going to be like his grandfather, never going to be a heroic and fearless Jedi knight who can banish the Dark with a shining blade, but this vision, this beauty is a fair trade off. He gazes out a window and marvels at the knowledge that there are untold billions of lives out there, starting and ending and interconnecting. If he tries with all his heart, he can almost brush against them, against the Living Force itself. 

————

He is fifteen and full of garbled stories of faraway people and places when he first really notices they are coming closer. They have something to say about Uncle Luke, about the school, about someone called the Supreme Leader. He sleeps for a day straight to try to focus on them, and wakes up in a cold sweat because they feel like death itself and the feeling makes him sick. Still, he knows them now. 

He runs through two buildings barefoot and interrupts a meeting to tell his mother that the Knights of Ren are coming to massacre Uncle Luke’s students. She doesn’t bat an eye as she calls Uncle Luke to warn him, grabs Ben, and goes to head them off.

————

Ben is still fifteen when he sees the Knights of Ren for the first time in person. Faced with Uncle Luke, Ben’s mother, and every students who knows how to hold a weapon, they don’t feel like death. They feel like fear. Uncle Luke pulls the masks from their faces with a wave of his hand, and Ben is startled to learn that they are little older than he is. One, a girl with a scar on her cheek, glares at him, pulling at something she can’t quite pull right. Ben’s not sure what to do, so he smiles in the general direction of the Knights.

“You need a better teacher,” he says. The girl with the scar spits at him. 

————

Ben is fifteen when Uncle Luke’s school isn’t destroyed. He doesn’t know this is very important, that the fate of star systems and governments, of individuals and a galaxy of shining lifetimes, is tied inexorably to the fate of the school, its students, and its teacher.

He’s sixteen when he’s sent back for a probationary period. It is, surprisingly, his father’s idea. The school feels like a beacon, a natural luminescence, and Ben knows that neither he nor his smoke-shadow belong there. The man in black is waiting for him at his usual haunts, tense and wary, and Ben looks at him and sees him properly for the first time.

“Hello, grandfather,” Ben says softly, holding out a hand to shake. The ghost mimics the gesture, and they are both startled when their hands touch, actually touch on some level. A familiar smile spreads over the face of the man in black.

“Welcome back, Ben,” he says. 

————

The probationary period ends, and Ben stays. He’ll never be a fearless Jedi knight like his grandfather, no, but at sixteen-and-more-than-a-half he is a powerful creature in his own right. That power cannot be crafted into a blade, not by someone like Uncle Luke, anyway– Ben has occasional dreams of other worlds and other suns and other people with power like his own who were taught to kill and die for their masters and their code, but Uncle Luke isn’t like that. Ben begins to arm himself with foreknowledge and the thought of a shield. 

Death is the enemy, he – and his classmates and family – must not die. That’s not a conclusion he reaches on his own; his second shadow guides him to the idea, he knows that, though he isn’t sure why. The best way to defeat death is to keep everyone safe, to keep all danger at bay. Those are his own thoughts, though his shadow is pleased by them. It teaches him to heal, to mend flesh and bone and skin in a way that makes Uncle Luke worry but makes Ben’s mother proud. 

A note: Leia Organa is a pragmatic woman. She knows the Dark clings to her son– if it’s teaching him to heal rather than to harm, she’ll take it as progress. She was born too late to meet any of the others who walked that same path in bygone days, but she has no doubts that it is there. 

————

At seventeen, Ben lives more in dreams than in the world around him. He talks to ghosts and scares the youngest students, and there is a general consensus among responsible adults that he will not ever get to handle a lightsaber, but that’s alright. There isn’t a bruise to be seen on the whole planet, and nightmares are chased off by a smiling figure in a dark cowl. Intelligence reports are sent back to Yavin IV weekly. 

————

He’s seventeen, too, when he’s jerked violently back into his body by a small hand tugging on his coat. He blinks, because everything is green and his last vision was somewhere covered in sand. 

“Ben,” Rey says– probably repeats. “How did you make the ghosts leave you alone?” He can’t answer her because he didn’t make them leave him alone, not really. 

“Why?” he asks instead, squinting at her. “Is something bothering you?” Rey feels the same as she always feels, bright and cheerful and glowing under and around blotches of wariness that can border on fear. Are the blotches bigger today? They seem bigger. Rey rubs her ear uncomfortably. 

“… It keeps saying weird things,” she mumbles. “And I can’t see it and it says you can’t really help people but you can and please tell me how to make it go away.” 

Ben has to close his eyes to see it, but there is something there, a pale, cold hand that brushes against Rey’s round cheek, a dark figure bending to whisper in her ear. It’s not a ghost. It’s too alive to be a ghost. It’s alive and it’s hurting Rey and he loves his cousin more than than every life-light in the universe–

A note: Dark Lords have a bad tendency to underestimate power that they do not themselves possess. Rey has utmost faith in her family, Ben has his mother’s lessons of love, and both of these things are powerful.

– he loves his cousin more than anything, so he grabs the thing that is hurting her hurtles into emptiness with it.

————

Ben is seventeen when Supreme Leader Snoke loses his grip on the scions of the Skywalker line entirely. Darkness doesn’t cling to Rey, it barely has a chance to touch her. Even if it did, it wouldn’t stick, not for a long time. She has too much of her grandfather in her. Darkness clings to Ben, and he wears it like a second skin. No one and nothing will hurt what is his. He has too much of his grandfather in him.

He’s seventeen when he spends two weeks unconscious, side by side with his little cousin. Their bodies breathe shallowly in Uncle Luke’s medical wing, but their spirits walk hand in hand through a world long destroyed, following a memory of a girl with the Force in her blood and fire in her eyes.

————

Ben turns eighteen while Ry’lah and Temmit are off on a hunt for Kyber crystals. They’re going to be knights and partners until the end of time. Everyone is very proud. The younger children want to go with them– Rey almost can go with them, she’s certainly powerful enough, and everyone knows she’ll become a knight early. She doesn’t want to become a knight without her best friend, but Ben doesn’t think that’s going to delay her exactly. The only reason Finn isn’t the best out of the children’s class is because Rey is there and she was raised in the school. 

In his dreams, Ben can watch his former classmates on their travels, can follow like a ghost as they enter a cave on Illum hand in hand. They will always be together. The Force flows more strongly around them when they are, amplifying itself in waves. Partnerships like that are rare, and there is power in them, power he can never possess. He’s jealous. It’s pointless jealousy, but he’s still jealous. 

————

That same year, Finn and Rey take one of Uncle Luke’s ships on a joyride. She’s almost nine, he’s about eleven. They nearly get out of the system, because Rey is sure she can find Finn’s parents. Ben isn’t sure even the Force and their family’s luck would let her find people Finn can’t even remember. 

————

When Ben is almost nineteen, Ry’lah and Temmit and Lessri and the others start to take the younger apprentices off-world for missions. Rey and Finn track through a desert with Lessri and come back with story upon story. Ben can only watch, and then listen. Uncle Luke is apologetic, but it’s abundantly clear Ben will never go with them. He’s too vague and too prone to losing himself in other people’s minds and memories to be of much use on missions. He watches instead, watches watches, watches…

He’s sure he’s watching for something, something that his second shadow has seen before. He wants to warn Uncle Luke, but he doesn’t know what to warn him of. 

————

Ben is twenty when Ry’lah and Temmit go off into the Outer Rim chasing a legend about ancient monks. It’s far, but it’s simple, so Uncle Luke lets them take Rey and Finn. Two sets of partners. Ben watches them go, watches them travel, and watches them vanish from even his dream-view. 

He breaks every window in the school with his scream and tears Uncle Luke’s office to shreds before he manages to yell that they’re gone gone gone lost gone lost lost gone lost gone


	17. Brendol Hux II (8)

The Deception’s first mission is probably just a test run, both for her and for her captain. It isn’t explicitly said, but Brendol is entirely certain that’s the case. She gets a skeleton crew. Brendol is there, of course, and Uthra jumps at the chance to volunteer. She’s closely followed by the half-Chiss Phasma, who appears to be a bigger fan of duplicity and sneaking than her straightforward demeanor would let on. Each volunteer after that is less and less human. Brendol’s not entirely sure what that means, in the grand scheme of things, besides that Admiral Calrissian is probably testing him on more than one level, so he grits his teeth, tries to ignore that one of his new crew members has gills, and judges on competence. 

To their credit, they’re all competent, even if one does curiously ask him why some humans are spotted. 

————

Most of them are trained for reconnaissance. That makes their work easier. The Deception makes port on Almania without much difficulty, flying no colors and making no statement. The First Order has allies there, but for the most part they are allies in the sense that much of the planet remembers the days of the Empire fondly. Back then, Brendol thinks, everyone suffered equally; while the New Republic has brought freedom and a degree of prosperity back to many world, Almania is not one of them. There are slavers there, however, and slavers rarely care to whom they sell. The ones Brendol meets with shake his hand, deliberates before shaking Uthra’s, and ignores the rest of the crew.

A note: It’s a sign of how much of an influence the past eight years have had on the Imperial-son-of-an-Imperial that he takes offense to this. He hardly wants to get close to his crew either, but it’s not sensible to ignore most of the people you’re doing business with.

The Deception’s crew marks sixteen different people for arrest and sends them all to a meeting spot further up the Perlemian Route. It goes off without a hitch, more or less– one of the slavers gets lost en route for a while, and the Republic official who is supposed to make the arrest is a solid hour late, but it’s still a resounding success. Phasma and Uthra play unofficial Resistance recruiters and Brendol spends half an hour arguing with some bureaucratic fish-faced monstrosity on Coruscant that setting up a proper base on Almania would really be quite beneficial and if the main problem was that Almania wasn’t part of the Republic maybe it ought to be so that the Republic could monitor who was trying to do business there. Brendol says the phrase galactic security at least sixteen times, remembers to call them locals rather than a native population, and manages to keep a straight face while talking about military recruitment. By the time the argument is done with he really needs a stiff drink and something to shoot. 

————

Three stiff drinks later, Brendol is less angry but much more aware of a buzzing in his head. It makes him think about the boy on the Citadel, about lightning and blackouts and forces beyond his understanding. Uthra is talking and talking about something he hasn’t been paying any attention to, but everyone is agreeing with her. Brendol wants a distraction before he’s forced to voice an opinion.

As luck, or maybe the Force itself, would have it, he gets one. 

The door slams open to the sound of someone cursing in Huttese, and a very large man is thrown bodily into the bar. A much smaller body follows moments later, and then another giant – this one entirely inhuman– lumbers in. The small thing – also not human, not with its red skin and spikes and tenrils, but small and round-faced with a child’s clumsiness – looks up and opens its mouth as if to scream. No sound comes out, at least none Brendol can hear, but nearly everyone present reacts as though it is shrieking to wake the dead. 

Brendol puts down his drink, looks around, and decides that he’s actually the only one reacting like he can’t hear it screaming, actually. He thinks again of the boy on the Citadel, curses the concept of the Force, and stands up. 

I“What is going on here?” he asks. The small creature – he’s hesitant to call it a child but it probably is one – looks at him, gives another soundless wail, and throws itself at him to hide in his coat. One of the men – Brendol pegs them as bounty hunters – pulls a blaster on him. Brendol is quick to follow suit, and so is Phasma who looms like an uncomfortably blue bodyguard. She carries a blaster roughly the size of her arm.

“Get outta my way,” the bounty hunter growls. His fellow has picked himself up off of the floor by now and seems to be deliberating whether to play backup or clear out. Brendol still can’t hear their prey, but he can feel it clinging to him and shaking. He can’t rid himself of the mental image of the boy from the Citadel, for some reason, though there aren’t many parallels to draw. 

“As soon as you tell me why it takes two grown men to catch a little thing like that,” Brendol replies evenly. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Phasma frown. 

“Hux, you can’t honestly mean to hand her over,” says Uthra sharply. “She’s just a little girl, whatever she looks like!” 

“That creature,” snarls the bounty hunter, “is a monster, not a child.” It – she? – only shakes harder at this pronouncement. “We’re bringing it back to where it belongs, alive or dead.”

“Well then. Someone must be paying you well for this.” Brendol doesn't have his father’s fake-warm smile, and he isn’t charming like Admiral Calrissian, but when he talks people tend to listen. “Is the brat worth it?” The second bounty hunter looks like he would like to respond with a resounding negative. The one with the blaster hesitates.

“No idea,” he says finally. “Not like he said why he wants it back.” Brendol waits. 

“Breeding program,” suggests the other bounty hunter after a long moment. “Like Imperials. Or sorcerers.”

“Sorcerers?” Uthra asks. The man shrugs. 

“Just hand it over before it blows up the bar,” says the first bounty hunter. 

“How much are you getting paid for this?” Brendan asks, even as he forcibly detaches the shaking creature from his coat and his belt and shoves it forward. “My boss likes interesting monsters. Maybe I’ll buy it off of you.”

A note: Brendol Hux II differs from his father in more ways than he is aware of. One of those is that unlike his father, Brendol is possibly less Force-sensitive than the blaster he carries. His father had served the Jedi Council because he had, to some small extent, caught their attention. 

————

The Deception leaves port with an extra passenger. As far as Brendol is concerned, the creature is entirely mute and his crew may be laboring under a mass delusion. At least none of them think it speaks in words, only that it knows how to scream in pain and fear. Uthra thinks it can force images into people’s minds as well, but it seems to do that rarely. Brendol leaves a message for Admiral Calrissian informing him of the creature’s existence and decides to call the matter concluded. They can always foist it off on the Jedi. 

————

A transmission comes through shortly afterwards, from Captain Drakki, about a missing ship in the region. Captain Drakki doesn’t give much detail, besides that it’s a small, civilian vessel last seen along the Hydian way, but it’s clear someone much more important than her wants the thing found. It’s not too much of a detour, the crew agrees, and the Deception changes course. 

She follows the new route properly for about an hour, and then several things happen in rapid succession. Her newest passenger starts silently screaming again, four-fingered hands clasped against its ears and its face contorted in a grimace of pain and terror. The standard engines short out and stop working entirely, and the secondary engines kick in only for long enough to shut down the entire ship, which is suddenly thrown in a completely different direction. The last thing anyone aboard the Deception is aware of is their captain rushing for the engine room and a hazy, distant memory of ice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise this random child will be relevant, and also I am so happy that literally any plot hole can be filled in with ~~~the Fooooooorce~~~ or potentially ~~aliens~~ in this fandom.


	18. Finn (Interlude 3)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finn? Finn! Finn is in this plot! Finn possibly deserves better than this plot!

Finn wakes up to silence. It’s not something he’s used to. At the school– anywhere, really – there are always sounds of life: breathing, motion, heartbeats, and the not-sounds that belong to little ripples in the Force. Silence is painful and honestly a bit deafening. He exhales slowly and tries to reach out with the Force, like he’s been taught, but finds nothing. Silence. Emptiness. Wait, no, there’s something in the background, a distant, almost mechanical concept-hum. That… doesn’t really make it any better. 

“Don’t panic,” he orders himself before he opens his eyes, but panic bubbles up in anyway. He’s lying on his back in an empty field. The ground beneath him is cold, frozen, the grass is dead, there are twisted, bare trees and rock formations in the distance– nothing here has been alive in years, in decades, in centuries…Finn shakes his head to clear it. Dead things, dead plants can’t really hurt him, or anyone else. They can’t help, either, but they can’t hurt. 

He pulls himself carefully to his feet. Bruised, cold, aching, frightened, but nothing is broken and he has his training saber with him. He activates the thing and thinks of Rey– Rey. Rey has to be here too, doesn’t she? The two of them and Ry’lah and Temmit had all been together, and then… He draws a blank. They were together, and now they were not. Don’t panic. Find an objective. Objective: find Rey, because she’s eleven and the youngest of the lot. Secondary objective: find Ry’lah and Temmit, because they’re supposed to be the adults on this mission. That’s… sensible, or close enough to sensible. 

Even as he reaches that conclusion, he’s aware of a flash of blinding light across the dark sky above him. A ship– a ship that seems to have snapped clean in two in its violent descent. Half of spirals out of sight, while the other is flung over the clearing Finn is in and lands with an audible – wonderfully audible, but also sort of painfully loud – crash not far away. It doesn’t seem like there’s anyone aboard, but Finn runs to investigate anyway. Thirteen-year-old boys are not known for their subtlety, and Jedi have historically been unable to not investigate things. It’s the will the of the Force, probably, though in this case it has a little to do with Finn not being sure where to start his search. 

————

It’s definitely weird that the part of the ship he is standing in front of is not on fire. There are bits and bobs he is sure belong to engines, but there isn’t even a smell of smoke. Had that ship been running on empty? That doesn’t feel like the right answer, somehow. There’s a sudden noise from the ship, and Finn flinches back on instinct, training saber raised defensively. He expects collapse, explosion… Maybe a droid? But not to see a blaster pointed at him. 

“Do not move,” orders a cold voice from the direction of the ship. “I know you are there, I can hear you breathing.” There is a lot one can glean from a voice and a hand, Finn knows. The man is speaking Basic, with a hint of an accent that sounds vaguely familiar. There’s no echo or trill that would suggest an alien voice-box. His hands, gloved, have five fingers, which would further suggest that he is human. Probably from the New Republic, somewhere, Finn thinks, somewhere where the shadow of the Empire remained…

“It’s okay,” Finn says, trying to sound steady and calm like Uncle Luke. Faking it always makes him feel a bit weird. “I’m not your enemy, I promise.” There is a tense silence, then the man attached to the blaster reveals himself. He’s tall and thin, with red hair and cold blue eyes, and he feels like he isn’t there at all. It makes Finn’s stomach turn. 

“You’re a Jedi,” the man says after a moment, lowering his blaster. Now it’s not aimed at Finn’s head as much as at his knees. Maim, immobilize, don’t kill– that attitude puts Finn in mind of one of the Force Ghosts who would linger about the school. The Old Council would be proud.

“I’m just an apprentice,” Finn corrects automatically as he deactivates the training saber. “I’m here with two Knights and another apprentice, but we got separated. Are you with the Republic?” The blaster is lowered the rest of the way, and the man steps out fully. He is clutching something mechanical and glowing to his chest with the hand not holding the blaster. Finn doesn’t recognize it, but he hazards a guess that it’s part of that ship. 

“Resistance,” the man says shortly. “I work for Admiral Calrissian.” He regards Finn curiously for a moment. “I apologize for frightening you,” he adds, though he doesn’t holster the blaster. Finn looks back and tries to project calmness all the more intensely. It doesn’t seem to be working, but there are other ways to deescalate a situation. Finn knows all of them. The ghosts think he would make a very good Jedi Councillor. 

“I– uh… I’m Finn,” he says. “That’s my name. What’s yours?” 

“Hux,” says the man simply. The name rings even more familiar than his odd accent, though Finn can’t place either one at the moment. “Did you come here on the Bellandra?” Finn nods, and a crooked grin twists Hux’s face. It’s not a pleasant expression. He can definitely confirm that Darth Vader makes better facial expressions. “Ah. Well then. It may amuse you to know we were meant to be your rescue party.”

————

The man doesn’t do anything to merit Finn’s dislike, aside from maybe not answering questions about the contraption he’s carrying with him, but within five minutes Finn is pretty sure he would be better off running blindly through the dead trees alone. Hux is insistent that he needs to find the rest of his crew, though, and Finn doesn’t want to leave anyone to wander alone. 

A note: Finn is the sort of person who never leaves anyone behind. He would have been an asset to the Jedi Council during the Clone Wars– a born commander, and a good man. He will be an asset to the Resistance in the future, too, but now he is just a student, just a child, righteous and good-hearted and sensible but young and innocent. 

The Force-hum gets louder when they walk in a certain direction, so that’s the direction they walk in. Hux says he can’t hear it, and he can’t tell there is nothing alive for miles. They walk in relative silence until, far away, Finn feels a presence in the Force. Ry’lah. It feels like Ry’lah, dimmed and angry and in the company of strangers, but it’s her. Finn announces – basically yells – as much. 

“Strangers?” echoes Hux. He sounds hopeful, but there is no sign of the actual emotion. It’s like trying to read a solid wall. “Well, if you hear screaming that I can’t hear, I’ll assume you found my crew. That’s how the Force works, isn’t it?”

“Probably,” says Finn. Even Uncle Luke doesn’t say he knows exactly how the Force works. “But only the Sith deal in absolutes.” Hux opens his mouth to say something, but apparently thinks better of it. Instead he manages the crooked fake-smile again. 

“Long walk, I assume,” he says, changing the subject abruptly. “Why don’t you tell me about your friend– what did you call her? Rey?”

“She’s wonderful,” says Finn, because she is. Even as he says it, he realizes something much more pressing. “She’s in trouble.” And he breaks into a run.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the award for most awkward conversation so far goes to these two.


	19. Ben Solo (8)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that was a long and unplanned hiatus. Sorry. In this chapter: Han Solo and also mythology.

Uncle Luke can’t leave the school. It’s too dangerous– too many people want the Jedi to really be extinct, and there are too many students who are younger than Rey and too many more who are older but have no control and too many who have yet to awaken to their true powers and it’s just too dangerous and Ben knows that before Uncle Luke even begins to explain. Uncle Luke can’t go look for Rey and the others. Rey’s mother can’t go look for her either, because she is far away and undercover, involved in some tense negotiation that she can’t leave. Tense negotiations come more easily to her than the Force does, more easily than parenting does, more easily than a lot of things. Ben knows that too, though the knowledge makes windows shatter and the ground tremble. For some amount of time – he’s too hazy with rage to know how long he is sure no one will go, no one will find her, sure that his sweet little cousin will vanish even from people’s memories as if she had never existed to begin with. 

That doesn’t happen, of course. Mere hours after the four Jedi vanish, the Millennium Falcon touches down outside the school. Ben’s father may not be Force-sensitive, and he may have lived most of his life as a criminal, a con man, a smuggler, and he may have danced with darkness and gambled with his own soul, but he has a family now and there is nothing and no one in the universe that can harm that family and not feel the full wrath of Han Solo.

In that sense, if not in others, Ben is every inch his father’s son.

————

There is an old story, an old legend, that says if an object exists for long enough and is given enough importance by the living, it gains a sort of life of its own. People don’t believe in such stories now, which is foolish, because the Force is much the same today as it was ten thousand years ago. There are palaces that remember ancient rulers and breathe their likenesses into the dreams of current ones. There are weapons that have a nigh-holy power, because they once were raised aloft and swung by heroes– or by those remembered as heroes. And there are old Corelian freighters, ones that were rebuilt and refurbished and improved by generations of people who had flight in their blood, that were sold and lost and gambled and won, that saw the rise and fall of governors and governments, that heard the promise of freedom whispered in voices that could not be silenced even by death.

The Millennium Falcon follows the trail of the missing Jedi, and when she is swept up in the invisible currents that caught them and others before and after. Han Solo alternates between swearing, yelling orders, and pleading with his ship as they are tossed and thrown and pulled down, down, down. Ben clamps his hands over his ears and shrinks down in his seat, fear overriding fury. Uncle Chewie struggles snarls and starts hitting buttons at random in hopes of triggering something, anything. It’s worth little– the Falcon spirals down in an uncontrollable trajectory towards the unknown planet’s surface. 

Han is the one who is closest to the mark, really, clutching the control panel and muttering assurances that everything would be okay, because the Falcon, with all systems down and only her own story and memory to carry her does something no ship before her had managed there:

She lands.

————

The first thing Ben is aware of when they touch down– unceremoniously but safely– is an overwhelming, oppressive silence. It’s so silent it hurts, so silent his knees buckle beneath him and Uncle Chewie has to lift him up like he’d always do when Ben was little. It hurts and it makes him think of dark rooms and looming figures, but as soon as the though crosses his mind it’s gone. 

The second thing Ben is aware of is that the silence is imposed, not natural. There’s something wrong in the Force here, something that hurts and beckons and traps. His father can’t feel it like he can.

Uncle Chewie asks. The absolute silence would suggest otherwise, but Ben is already casting himself over empty plains and around old, dead trees, looking for sounds and signs of life, and he finds them. 

Soldiers, ones belonging to the Resistance, worried that they wouldn’t be found, worried they had lost their captain – a child that glows with the Force, small and alien, not his to care about – Ry’lah and Temmit, together at least, hands clasped, searching, searching, lighting up with relief when he brushes against their minds – Rey’s friend, the little strategist boy with the mind like an encyclopedia, running to find her with… with something that has so small a presence it was nigh invisible – Rey, where is Rey? – There! Shadows, a temple, a memory of an ancient place and an ancient disaster. Usurpation after usurpation, and a girl standing at the foot of it, at the edge of a precipice, at the lip of a cave. 

“She can’t go in there!” Ben yells, dimly aware that his father and uncle lack any context for this announcement. “Rey– Rey’s in danger– We have to find her before she goes in there!” It’s a testament to Uncle Chewie’s upper body strength that Ben doesn’t manage to get loose and charge off in what he thinks is the right direction all on his own. It may also be a testament to how long Uncle Chewie has been dealing with Solos and Skywalkers and their tendencies towards rashness.

————

Ben’s father is the one who leads the way, armed and rather eager to shoot some local lifeform in the face. There aren’t any local lifeforms, though, and that’s enough to put him on edge. Ben’s barely conscious enough to walk, latched onto his uncle’s arm and the back of his father’s vest like a very young child, though his mind flies far away. He can direct Ry’lah and Temmit – and the soldiers who are with them – towards the Falcon that way, even though they don't really listen, and he can watch the other apprentice, Finn. 

Finn seems to know where he’s going, which would be a surprise if he was anyone else. He may be young, but his Force signature is sharp and clearly defined, and the general sense about the school is that Finn was born in the wrong century. He has the mind and manner of an Old Republic Jedi, one meant for council rooms and grand plans and state religions. Even here, he gives off an air of righteous purpose, despite an undercurrent of fear and worry. When Ben reaches out to him through the Force, he’s surprised to find himself pushed back, back, out, no time, not you, something’s wrong, go back. He looks for details, but there aren’t any, so he decides the boy’s just worried-scared-angry. Fear leads to anger leads to suffering. He has more important things to think about. 

————

The ancient temple looms like a nightmare in the most silent part of the silent planet. Usurpation after usurpation. Disaster and death. Thousands upon millions of lifetimes, and for what? For mortal arrogance? For betrayal? For love?

The crew of the Millennium Falcon rush onto the site in time to see a small figure in Jedi robes cross the threshold, head held high. She can’t– she mustn’t– Ben throws his uncle a solid ten feet without a conscious thought and plunges after her, over the threshold and into the sanctum that those who carry the blood of the Usurper of the Path would defile with their presence. 

It swallows them both into its shadows.


	20. Brendol Hux II (9)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finn! And Han!

He talks like a trained conflict negotiator and moves with the efficiency of a soldier. Jedi or not, kid or not, Finn is fairly sensible, Brendol decides. That’s why, when the kid announces that his friend is in danger and bolts, Brendol follows him without argument. It’s not like he can find his crew on his own, anyway, not with his comm dead and the core of his engine in his arms like it’s some sort of awkwardly shaped pet, so he doesn’t really have anywhere else to go, but following the kid doesn’t seem like a bad idea in and of itself. The phrase “officer material” drifts through his mind, but the Resistance doesn’t take children to be soldiers. The Jedi Council once did, but the boy running in front of him is decades late to catch the fancy of the Jedi Council. 

Brendol can run without talking, but it’s clear Finn can’t. Around five minutes into the mad dash he starts mumbling to himself.

“Don’t panic. Don’t be scared.” Brendol has a vague impression that Jedi aren’t supposed to have feelings, so the boy’s probably giving himself good advice. This is a common refrain.

“Stop, stop, don’t go in there!” gets muttered a bit more urgently. It’s possible he’s talking to his missing friend, the girl Rey. If he can hear other people through the Force, it’s perfectly likely that she can hear him. Brendol makes a mental note to read up on the Force and those who can wield it as soon as he gets off of this all-forsaken rock, because he doesn’t like dealing in hypotheticals. 

————

Another ship spirals out of the sky, this one not far from them. The sound on the planet is muffled, somewhat, but it would be able to silence the sound of a crash. There isn’t one. This ship has landed, then– perhaps clumsily, perhaps it won’t take back off, but it has landed in one piece. As confirmation, Finn doesn’t even turn towards it. They keep going. 

“Go away,” Finn mutters sharply, and who- or whatever he’s speaking to apparently listens to him because he soon returns to his usual theme. Brendol counts minutes. It crosses his mind that he possibly should be panicking, all considered. He’s not. He’s annoyed, at best, and honestly somewhat curious. He’d be less annoyed if his ship were still in one piece. 

————

Finn yelps suddenly and stumbles, clutching at his head. Brendol grabs his arm and hoists him upright. He has to hold him there, as the boy sways and wobbles. 

“What happened?” Brendol asks.

“–out,” Finn whimpers. “Go back– get out, there’s no time– not you– anyone but you–“ His skin is clammy and his gaze is far away, and for a moment Brendol is sure that he’s going to collapse, but after a few seconds he steadies himself. 

“Anyone but whom?” Brendol presses. 

“There’s no time,” Finn mutters. “They’re both going– they’ll both go in there.” His gaze sharpens, riveting first on Brendol’s face and then on something in the direction they’d been going. “We can’t stop them– Rey and her cousin– they’re too far.” He takes a shaky breath. “Okay. New plan. I need a new plan.”

“Dramatic rescue?” Brendol offers. It would be appropriate to smile at this point, but Finn flinches back every time he does, so it’s not worth it. “Whatever they’ve gone into, we pull them out. If we can get into contact with my crew, we will have backup.” That works better. The boy nods curtly.

“I’ll– I’ll try to get Ry’lah and Temmit to tell them,” he mutters. “If they can hear me. Maybe if we rendezvous at the… the disturbance…” He trails off, uncertain. Brendol has seen that expression before – there should really be one word for the concept of this-sim-is-like-this-other-sim-but-not-exactly-and-there’s-a-time-limit. 

“If we rendezvous at the disturbance we will be able to work out our next move,” Brendol says patiently, “because at the moment you may be the only one who knows what the disturbance is. Did Rey’s cousin come on that ship?” Finn nods. 

“He’s supposed to be a Jedi, but he’s … um…” The implication is unclear, but clearly negative.

“But he isn’t, actually, one?” Brendol offers. Another nod. “Alright. He’ll count a civilian, then?” Hesitation. “A liability?”

“No! Don’t say things like that!” Finn’s dark eyes flash angrily. Something crackles in the air. Brendol frowns at him.

“Statistically speaking, I mean. Can he be counted on to help us from the inside, or are we going to have to drag him out while rescuing your friend?” Finn makes a face. 

“Drag him out,” he admits unwillingly. “Statistically speaking. I mean he’s not, like–”

“One apprentice, one lead weight, in an unknown but dangerous location,” Brendol rattles off like he’s reading a report. “Call your knights, get my crew here, whatever you need to do to do that. I’m not letting anything else go wrong with my mission.”

————

The temple looms in front of them. It’s a massive, ruined structure of unknown provenance, with cracked carvings and a large, dark entryway. It’s darker than it ought to be, given that there is a significant amount of – admittedly distant – sunlight. Brendol chalks that up to the Force, especially because Finn looks like he’s about to cry just looking at it.

“Is that the disturbance?” he asks, despite being quite sure that it is. There’s someone – two people? – hiding behind a rocky outcropping, but they aren’t moving to attack. 

“Yes,” says Finn, less shaky than could’ve been expected. 

“I’d say it’s disturbing,” snaps one of the men behind the outcropping as he steps out and aims a blaster at Brendol’s head. “What’s that to you, you First Order scumbag?” Eight years have definitely not managed to shave the Imperial accent from Brendol’s words, clearly. The man hesitates somewhat at the sight of Finn, at least, though Finn looks so much worse for wear that he could be a kidnap victim. At least the combination of clothes, Resistance manner, and wookie associate makes it clear who the man is.

“Good afternoon, General Solo,” Brendol says before anyone else can say anything. “I’m Captain Brendol Hux II of the starship Deception. Admiral Calrissian sent me. A girl called Rey and her cousin are in there, my crew and two Jedi knights are coming to this location. Please allow us to assist you.” Finn drops like a lead weight. Brendol catches him a bit awkwardly. “Me. Allow me to assist you, I suppose.” 

“You work for Lando,” Han Solo grumbles. He turns to the wookie. “He works for Lando.” The wookie shrugs and makes an exasperated noise. “Don’t you even start.” Brendol smiles. 

“Now that we’re all on the same page, I defer to your command. Should I go in there now, or ought we await reinforcements?” Solo looks like he’s about to throw the blaster rather than shoot it. 

“That’s my family in there,” he snaps. “I’m not waiting for anyone!” And suiting action to word, he storms off towards the temple.

————

The wookie stays behind with Finn, because the boy is out cold. Brendol gets the enviable task of playing second fiddle to a hero of the Rebel Alliance. He considers mentioning that the First Order’s cadets used images of General Solo’s face for target practice, but decides against it. There will probably be a better time and place for that. 

Within the unnaturally dark temple, there are stairs winding deep into the ground. There’s nowhere else to go but down, and the dust on them is broken by footprints – one set of small ones, the girl’s, and one belonging to a grown man – so Brendol descends cautiously. General Solo is nervy, and in the heavy silence every step and every breath seem too loud. 

Five full rotations down, the stairs abruptly stop. Beneath the last one, a massive abyss yawns, an abyss like the darkness of empty space. Neither set of footprints seems to have acknowledged this, however, and when Brendol puts out a hand he encounters a pressure field of some sort. General Solo, pragmatically, aims down and shoots, but the blaster shot dissipates a foot or so below the end of the stairs, turning to flickering sparks which spread out like a nova before fading but illuminate nothing. Well. That’s… odd.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” says General Solo wearily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, no way these two are gonna get through the temple on their own. Stay tuned for more Force Nonsense(tm), Skywalker Problems(tm), and the occasional Sith Lord.


	21. Phasma (Interlude 4)

Phasma is too well-trained to groan, at least out loud. She’s definitely groaning internally, though, as well as sighing internally and raging internally. The situation merits it. At least the less obnoxious of the two Jedi has managed to communicate that her idiot captain is alive. That’s a good thing. Probably. It makes the child scream less, at least. She gets the impression that the kid likes Hux, which is bizarre because Phasma doesn’t think anyone should really like Hux. For any reason. 

“Well if Finn’s actually found the disturbance,” says the calmer Jedi. The louder one interrupts. 

“Then Finn’s about to go headfirst into danger with some halfwit officer and Ben’s father!” she snaps. “That’s not a good thing!” 

“Finn’s sensible,” says the calm one, Temmit. The child, clinging to Phasma’s shoulders, leaves some sort of echo in her mind. Sensible. A boy with steady hands.

“Finn’s like, twelve,” says the other vehemently. Wide eyes and child’s wariness. “I don’t care how sensible, he’s twelve.” Lieutenant Uthra frowns. 

“How much time do we have?” she asks. The angry Jedi shakes her head.

“Too little,” she mutters, and sprints on ahead. Phasma has half a mind to warn her to be careful, but it’s a pointless idea. There’s nothing around for her to be careful of, nothing moving but them. Phasma’s not sure what can do that. She’s knows bombs and targeted strikes and Death Stars, but those leave destruction, ruin. There are no signs of war here, just emptiness like a flame snuffed out. 

She’s too well trained to be scared, per se, but it turns her stomach.

————

They as good as tear into the clearing where the temple is. It’s massive, even in its state of disrepair. At full size, it must have been bigger than the buildings on her homeworld, bigger than anything short of the floating ship-cities that travel through the Unknown regions. 

The child leaves an echo that rises into the sky and across the planet at large, swarming with people who look like her, feeling like a dark, warm sanctuary. 

In reality, there a wookie and an unconscious kid who could be Lieutenant Uthra’s kid brother are waiting in front of a ruin, and it’s nothing like anyone’s home. The angry Jedi swears loudly. Her partner’s green scales go dull with … pain? Fear?

“Finn?” Temmit calls softly. The boy stirs. The wookie makes a noise of relief. Behind them, the temple looks unnaturally dark. 

It’s always been dark, but it’s a different sort of darkness. There used to be life, to be people, to be families, standing together in night’s embrace. 

The child buries her face in Phasma’s neck. Even she doesn’t like this.

————

Finn, when conscious, is quite sensible. Hux is in the temple, General Solo is with him. They’re looking for the missing apprentice, and for General Solo’s son. Finn thinks they’re in danger– the two Jedi, that is, not Hux or Solo – but he’s certain he can’t do anything himself, and that’s why he called for backup. He’s sorry he passed out, the temple is a Disturbance-with-a-capital-D. 

“Don’t worry,” says Temmit. “We’re here now, there’s–“ There is a rumble, deep underground, like an earthquake. The wookie growls. “Well, that’s not good,” Temmit mutters. 

“Let’s roll,” Lieutenant Uthra orders sharply, marching towards the temple. 

A priestess once walked there, golden and tattooed and draped in while. Uthra doesn’t look like her and doesn’t walk like her, but they have the same eyes, bright and determined. The priestess looks back– 

Phasma shakes her head violently. There isn’t a priestess, there, and Uthra is not the sort of woman who looks back. The crew of the Deception follows her like a wave. No one really likes Hux, none of them have any particular loyalty to General Solo, and none of them know the missing Jedi, but they’re not the sort of people who leave anyone in the darkness.

————

There’s an overwhelming quiet in the temple, and an odd sort of dust coats everything. Phasma doesn’t like it. It isn’t normal dust, somehow, and it doesn’t belong to the building it is in. Phasma follows the footprints down the stairs. 

There used to be students there. 

The child squirms and wiggles, and Phasma sets her down without thinking about it, only for the child to rush ahead, skipping steps and leaping with a practiced ease. 

There used to be students there, and there were students’ chambers down below, and someone came and took it all away. Usurpation after usurpation, and now the blood of the usurper has returned. 

Phasma charges after her, just in time to see the child dodge around an older man – presumably General Solo – grab Hux by the hand, and vanish into the dark with him, ringing and echoing with a desperate need to find something. Hux shoots an exasperated look over his shoulder before he vanishes. It’s the wrong expression for the situation. 

————

With some trouble, the conclusion that the Force is needed to pass into the next room is reached. General Solo is exasperated. They pursue. It feels like chasing a ghost, honestly. The Chiss have no qualms about being underground, and Phasma is no different from the rest of her kinfolk in that sense. That is not the case for some of her new companions; Uthra is born and raised on starships and the sight of the sky, and General Solo is Corellian. And the floor slopes down, down, down… 

She almost runs smack into Hux, suddenly. He’s smiling. It’s disgusting. He fits right in in the temple, in the weird dead air. 

“They’re in there,” he says calmly and quickly. “There’s some sort of inner sanctum, and the girl and General Solo’s son are in there. I don’t think there’s anyone with them, but they seem to be praying.” A pause. “It may not be of their own volition.” The child peers around his legs, and his smile fades. “And if this creature has something to say, I would suggest someone translate. I still can’t hear it.” Solo pushes past him, and the boy Finn grabs the strange child by the hand and follows. Hux exhales shortly. 

Something rumbles again, and this time it’s all around them. Temmit catches hold of Phasma’s arm unsteadily. It’s a good idea. Phasma’s always steady on her feet. It’s possibly a Chiss thing. 

“Shut up,” says the other Jedi to nothing in particular. “You’re dead, there’s no point in still moving.” The rumble increases in response, growing so violent that even Hux reacts, hugging his engine core tighter to his chest. He doesn’t show nearly as much concern for anything living.

————

There’s another forcefield blocking of the inner sanctum. It tints everything red. Phasma has no idea how red can be cold, but this shade is. On the other side, a girl with her hair in buns kneels in front of a crumbling altar. She’s tiny. Her eyes are wide open, though, and it’s clear she can see them. She doesn’t turn, but she does smile and mouth Finn’s name. The man beside her is praying with his eyes shut. He doesn’t seem aware of anything. Hux mutters something that sounds like the word liability. 

Solo turns around and punches him clean in the face.

It may not be the best course of action at the moment, but Phasma supports it on a spiritual level.


	22. Rey (Interlude 5)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uhhhh TW talk of human sacrifice, random amounts of blood, and Hux being fifty shades of asshole

She’s not sure how she got into the room, or how Ben got into the room, but she knows neither of them should be there. There’s a voice in her head, whispering and hissing like the one Ben sent away when she was little, but this one feels like it’s… different. That one wanted things, specific things, and this one is not aware enough to want. It’s too old, old like the stone she’s kneeling on, old like the language of the carvings above her head. She can’t read them, but she can tell they’re a codification of some ancient figure’s rage. Rage didn’t save them, though, she thinks. Everything around her feels like death, absolute, silent death without the Force and without an answer, without balance, without anything at all. No, death is a part of the Force. Without the Force it is not death, it’s… she flounders for a word, only to find one offered to her. 

Cessation. 

Rey blinks. The word is offered in a man’s voice, and it’s not Ben’s. There’s no one else around, she’s sure of it even though she can’t move her body enough to look around. It’s just her and Ben alone in the crumbling room full of rage and the feeling of cessation. She thinks a cautious greeting, and for a moment finds herself somewhere else: a dark room with a tall, thin man who bends over a ball of light before looking up at her. The next instant the vision passes, but she has some feeling in her limbs, now. The voice definitely belongs to that man, she knows that to be true, but she doesn’t know who he is or what he wants.

The Usurper of the Path.

Someone else – presumably the thin man – tilts her chin up as that title is offered to her, forcing her gaze to the engraving with the bizarre language. One of the words is identified firmly as usurper, now, and it repeats in multiple places on the wall and ceiling. All of the rage here, all of the despair that underlies it, all of it is directed at the Usurper – Usurpers? – of the Path, but all of them are dead. Dead. That’s the right word this time, death instead of cessation. She lowers her head again, dropping back into the posture this place seems to want of her, on her knees and praying to an empty altar, but this time she is aware of a smoky, shadowy sort of half-presence brushing against her back. It’s comforting, in an odd way, and half-familiar. 

Abruptly, the room begins to shake, everything begins to shake, but it doesn't shake the dust off of the altar or knock her or Ben out of their positions. She takes stock of her cousin as best she can – he’s breathing shallowly and his eyes are shut, but the smoky presence is wrapped around him too. 

You’re sorry, she thinks distantly. The thin man, or his ghost, takes a long while to answer.

The Usurper of the Path. The Path that is not to be trodden. It was an error. He’s sorry.

After that the thin man is silent. 

————

Rey’s not sure how long she waits, with Ben and with the thin man’s shadow and the rage and the cessation, but suddenly she sees movement out of the corner of her eye. They’re far away and tinted red, but there are some figures she’ll recognize anywhere. Uncle Han and Uncle Chewie are there, and that’s probably Temmit holding onto some soldier as the world rocks and shakes again, and Ry’lah on the side by the wall, but most importantly–

“Finn!” She tries to call out to him, but finds she can’t speak. Mouthing it is good enough, though, because both Finn and Uncle Han step forward. So does the man next to Uncle Han, and the next moment Uncle Han decks the guy in the face. 

That’s when something weird happens, because Rey fully expects the guy to hit the red stuff like it’s solid and possibly punch Uncle Han right back. He does neither, because he turns sideways from the punch, hits the red stuff like it’s solid for a split second with one hand, turns from that impact, and then goes clean through it sort of chest first. It’s awkward and clumsy and Rey would laugh aloud probably if the situation was serious. She fixes her gaze on the man, who may be a smuggler and may be soldier but has almost no Force signature and makes her uncomfortable even from a solid twelve feet away. He stares back for a moment, shifts his gaze back to the red stuff, then to the thing he’s holding – Rey’s first thought was droid and second thought was artifact but it’s neither, it’s part of something and it’s new – then to Ben, then to the altar. 

“The Force,” he mutters derisively, then marches over to her. “Rey Skywalker, I assume?” She tries to nod. Whatever she does manage to do is interpreted as a yes, anyway. He pokes Ben with his free hand, gets no response, and grimaces slightly. Well, he’d been punched in the nose, so he was already grimacing a little, but he grimaces more. “Do you know what this place is?” he asks. She shakes her head as best she can. “Pity. This altar seems to be at the center of things. I’d like to know what it is you’re attempting to be sacrificed to.”

No more sacrifice. The smoke pulls tight around her shoulders. It feels rather like when Aunt Leia tries to be comforting during political functions, the same sort of squeeze. The man Uncle Han punched grabs Rey’s arm too tight and tries to yank her to her feet, but it doesn’t work. Whatever’s holding her in place holds her tightly, and the smoke grabs onto him in return. That makes him stop, blue eyes wide, staring at his wrist. 

“Is… someone else here?” he asks slowly. Rey nods again. The man considers this. He’s probably a soldier, despite his clothes. He looks like the holos of Imperial officers from Daddy was young, and he sounds a bit like them too. He crosses to the altar with two quick steps, then runs his hands over the top of it. After a moment he nods, turns on his heel, and kneels down, facing away from the altar. Towards the smoke, Rey thinks. “My Lord,” he says firmly. “This altar was designed for sacrifice. One must be offered, be it living or dead. There are three of you here, and there really is no need for that.” 

The blood of the Usurper of the Path. 

Rey wishes for any idea about who is usurping or has usurped and what has been usurped. She can hazard a guess that is has to do with her family; there’s no other reason for her and Ben to both be here, but other than that… Aunt Leia hasn’t usurped anything in her entire life, despite being a general and a politician. Daddy… well, if you really tried you could say that Daddy sort of usurped the Jedi order? But by the time Daddy started the school there wasn’t anything of a Jedi order to usurp. Grandmother was righteous and died young. Grandfather… Usurping was not the right word to use there. Destroying, maybe, but not usurping. She doesn’t think she has any other family. Grandfather’s mother died young too, and there wasn’t a father…

The blood of the Usurper of the Path. The Path that is not to be trodden. 

She tries to speak again – Finn is trying to get through the red wall, he doesn’t want her in there alone with the man who looks like and Imperial officer – Ben’s barely breathing – what even is the Path–

“Blood,” she whispers. The man who looks like an Imperial glances at her. 

“Pardon?” 

“The blood of the Usurper of the Path.” The thin man is using her tongue, using her face. “It was an error, it cannot be undone.” The man stares at her for a long moment, sets down his machine part right next to her, and draws a knife. 

“Understood, my Lord,” he says. “Your blood, by the Force. And I shall make this sacrifice.” And with a single fluid motion, he grabs Ben – Ben! – by the wrist, yanks him so that his arm is above the altar, and draws the knife into a vein, letting fat drops of blood splatter onto the dusty crumbling stone. “This is my Lord’s blood, the blood of the Usurper,” the man intones, and Rey wants to scream.

She does, in fact, scream and lurch to her feet as the ground roars and groans. Silence and cessation are suddenly replaced by cacophony, because the red wall is down, Finn is right next to her, the blood on the altar is giving off smoke – or is it collecting smoke? – and then Ben, swaying on his feet unsteadily, decks the Imperial right in his already wrecked nose. They both go down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy April! Expect daily updates this month, and come join me on campnanowrimo.org if you wanna~


	23. Ben Solo (9)

Ben’s first thought, when he wakes, is that something is missing. His second thought, which is about as coherent as the first, is that a dead man just stabbed him. His third is that Rey is screaming her head off, possibly because a dead man just stabbed him. Ben hasn’t got anything to stab back with, so he throws a punch instead.

A note: Ben is very much his father’s son. Were he more like his grandfather, he’d have used the Force and thrown something bigger. 

He hits the ground almost on top of the dead man, who, upon closer examination isn’t dead, but is holding a short, Resistance-military-issue knife that is stained with definitely Ben’s blood. The not-dead man looks a bit amused. 

“Welcome back,” he deadpans. “You aren’t very good at rescue missions, Ben.”

“Well you’re not good at your face,” Ben snaps, and that’s about when his father helps him up and Uncle Chewie pulls them both into a hug. The not-dead man grabs something off of he ground before the altar and–

– And there is someone sitting on the altar: the smoky figure of a thin man in a dark cloak. The guy with the knife pauses in front of him, then bows like an Imperial officer out of a holo. 

“Well, you sure are there, my Lord,” he says flatly. “Even I can see you now.” The room goes quiet. It’s abundantly clear that yes, the ghost on the altar is very visible, to absolutely everyone.

“You’re the Usurper!” Rey declares abruptly. She looks bad. Sick. The Usurper looks at her, sad and weary. There’s something stabbed through his chest, something that looks ornate and ceremonial.

“I am,” he says. His voice echoes. Without the echo, it’d sound weak. A crooked smile twists his features. “At least, I am a Usurper, but the difference is a matter of semantics.”

“Great,” says Ben’s father. “I don’t care. We’re leaving.”

“I would advise it,” says the Usurper. “That which lingers here does not take kindly to trespass.” Almost everyone wants very much to leave, Ben can feel it. Everyone but– 

There had been students there. There had been a world, alive, warm with life. A small figure clings to the hem of the Imperial’s jacket and stares up at the altar. 

“Well now,” the Usurper murmurs. “What have we here?” It– she? – is frightened, unhappy, confused, a tangle of emotions and wordless thoughts. Just looking at her is giving Ben a headache, and he can’t remove himself from the room, let alone the building, to get some air. 

Cold was outside, why was it cold inside, cold and empty? There is no death in the Force, in the Path you just walk onto another one and then you’re still somewhere not nowhere. There should be something in the temple but it’s missing, and everything was taken away. Usurpation after usurpation. Ben’s knees are weak. It feels like an entire star system is supposed to fit under this roof, endless burning lights and glowing lives that were somehow snuffed out like someone closed a hand about a flame.

“As I said,” says the Usurper softly. “I am one– the last of many. I stole my way onto the Path of Life, but there are many paths because the Force is many things. Those you seek, child, have not been here for many thousands of years, long before my time. Not even ghosts remain.”

Impossible– how had it happened? A promise had been made, how had someone gone back on it? Who had taken it away? Who had snuffed out the flame? Who had silenced the voices? Someone, someone, someone…

The ground shakes beneath them, and Ben topples for what feels like the hundredth time that day. The Imperial turns on his heel sharply. 

“That’s enough, I’d say, General,” he tells Ben’s father. “Let’s get out of here before this accursed temple collapses on us. Or before another one of those shields comes up.” He grabs the child– but surely she belongs in the temple, surely she can read the writing on the wall, surely there’s something she came for and someone who sent her and something more than this – and makes for the door. 

Some people follow him– the soldiers, they’re soldiers – and the spell is probably broken by that. Uncle Chewie lifts Ben up into his arms and follows them, because Uncle Chewie is an old soldier too. Something is still wrong, so wrong. Ben can see Rey and her friend over Uncle Chewie’s shoulder– Finn is clutching her hand like she’s about to vanish like smoke, but he holds the other one out to the Usurper with a desperate sort of concern. Rey wants to thank the man, Finn rather wants to drag him out out and away to safety. 

“I apologize,” the Usurper says. “I am a willing sacrifice.” And he gestures to the weapon plunged through his chest. At his touch, it lights up crimson, pinning him in place.

————

They’re partway up the shaking hallway– Ben’s not sure how far, but not far enough – when the walls start collapsing in on them. Everyone’s swearing at this point, either silently or out loud. Mostly out loud, actually. The Imperial skids to a stop and starts to wave people past, silently counting heads. The temple’s child is screaming at him, but it seems like he can’t hear her. One of the soldiers scoops her up and runs for the exit.

It’s not supposed to be like this, it’s not really like this, it’s not real it’s not real it’s not real– It has to be real, because people can feel the falling debris and the dust – It can’t be real because nothing falls that silently, not stone and not night – It’s real because Ben can feel it – It’s not real because the Imperial can’t–

Ben shuts his eyes and tries to shut his ears to block out the panic, or at least any panic that isn’t his own. He needs to– He needs to see what’s actually happening. There are the soldiers going on ahead. Ry’lah and Temmit are in the back of the line, making sure no one falls behind. Ben’s father is with them, with Rey and Finn. The Imperial is a blank spot against the wall. There’s no other motion– the Usurper is back, far behind them, but he’s barely there, just a wisp of somethingness in the midst of all the nothingness. 

It’s not supposed to be like this, it was never like this.

————

There is an old story, an old legend, that says if an object exists for long enough and is given enough importance by the living, it gains a sort of life of its own. People don’t believe in such stories now, which is foolish, because the Force is much the same today as it was ten thousand years ago. There are palaces that remember ancient rulers and breathe their likenesses into the dreams of current ones. There are weapons that have a nigh-holy power, because they once were raised aloft and swung by heroes– or by those remembered as heroes. There are old Corelian freighters that have seen freedom and conquest and freedom again. And there are temples that are painted with the rage of the dead, that are filled with loss and sorrow that no one is left to feel, that have seen worlds and empires stolen, torn from the grip of a people whose only sin was their birth and the power in their blood that they never asked for.

The True Sith are dust and dreams, mostly, after usurpation following usurpation, but their ruins remain, clinging to their gained-lives and to the fonts of power, the power of the Dark Side, upon which they were built. 

————

The True Sith could help their blood. The child with the red tendrils on her face and the silent screams of pain and loss cannot help her blood. She can’t help that she dreams of destroyed worlds and ancient empires. She certainly can’t help the way in which she was created, the fact that she has neither mother nor father and was grown in a cloning tank in the Unknown Regions and cast away as a failure, that everything she has ever felt has dragged her to this point and that now her entire short life is filled to the brim with despair. She’s only a child. These children are never to blame. The creature who manned the cloning tank is to blame, because it is the sort of creature that always grabs at and whispers into the ears of children because adults know better how to fight back. 

————

“It’s not really falling,” Ben says aloud. “It’s not truly falling at all.”

“That’s nice to know,” says the Imperial calmly. “I’ll assume something is falling falsely, then.” He can’t see it. He can’t feel it. It’s not real.

The temple goes quiet. Not silent. Quiet. Quiet like graves that no one mourns at and like ancient ghosts whose names have been forgotten, but not silent. The quiet is broken only by ragged breaths and the little choked sobs of the temple’s child.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's gonna be at least 30 more problems and Snoke to go, but at least no one's locked up anymore?


	24. Brendol Hux II (10)

“It’s not really falling,” Solo’s idiot son says dazedly. “It’s not truly falling at all.” He’s hanging like a rag doll in the wookie’s arms as they flee down temple hall back towards the stairs. That announcement would be helpful, Hux thinks, were anything falling at all. There’s something of a tremor in the ground, but the building itself is solid and clearly built to withstand such phenomena. There’s possibly some connection to the little alien that everyone but Hux thinks is screaming, because it’s equally ridiculous.

“That’s nice to know,” says Hux flatly. “I’ll assume something is falling falsely, then.” It’s about then that everyone shuts up. They also stop dead in the middle of the hallway, which is exactly not what Hux or the ghostly Sith Lord-looking man on the altar have been trying to get them to do. It’s quiet, except for muffled, choked sobs. Those are coming from the previously mute alien in Phasma’s arms, and Phasma looks like she wants to drop it.

“What, the ceiling?” Solo asks warily. His son nods.

“It’s not collapsing, it’s angry,” he says. “Rey– Rey’ll tell you.”

“Rey?” Solo prompts. The girl hesitates, fixes her gaze on something above everyone’s head, then nods too.

“I think… This whole building, this whole world…” Her voice quavers. “What happened here…?” Hux neither knows nor cares about that. He wants to get out, complete the mission, and report back. And fix his ship.

“All the more reason to leave,” says Uthra. “And quickly.” Another tremor passes through the ground, and Hux presses his back to the wall. Most of the others stumble. Uthra is off-balance already, and hits the ground with a yelp. Rey and Finn cling onto each other tightly. The wookie roars. 

“Run!” Solo orders, shoving the two children in front of him. They… well, an attempt is made to follow that order.

————

They hit the stairs with some difficulty. By that point Phasma is piggybacking Finn, Solo has his niece in his arms, and Hux is carrying the alien child – who is carrying the engine core – because he’s the only one who doesn’t go deaf on contact or something like that. It sobs tearlessly, possibly because it lacks the capacity to create tears, but it holds onto the core tightly. Hux gets the impression that it’s mimicking him in that sense. Uthra is going to have a good laugh about that later. 

The stairs vanish in front of them. Hux shuts his eyes and estimates where the stairs ought to be. They’re there. He ascends more or less gracefully. Behind him, the Jedi called Ry’lah makes an inhuman noise of rage. Like a great many stereotypes, those about Twi’lek women being passive and gentle is clearly wrong, at least in this case. 

Charging blindly into the dark seems rather thematically appropriate for the situation, Hux thinks. Up into the darkness, hoping to hit the light eventually, that would be the right way to phrase it when he tells the story later, but really he is running with his eyes shut and counting steps and rotations. Five-and-a-little rotations down, so five-and-a-little rotations up, taking care not to misstep or drop his valuable cargo. The child has stopped crying now, and the core is giving off a low hum. 

With all the other things stripped away, it’s simple enough: get to location, rendevous, secure target, exit. It’s familiar. He’d done any number of sims like this as a cadet, and he’s been an officer for eight years. The fact that those eight years have been spent in service to the Resistance doesn’t change anything. He is still Brendol Hux II, and he is still every inch his father’s son.

“Hux, slow down!” Uthra calls from somewhere behind him, and he stops, two and three-quarters of a rotation up, and looks back. The stairwell is bathed in a dim red light that emanates from the engine core. His crew, General Solo’s crew, and the Jedi cast long, distorted shadows, but Uthra’s face as she catches up to him is perfectly normal. He appreciates that, honestly. It’s possibly too late to be put off by the ambiance, but it is starting to get to him.

“Good enough?” he asks. She nods.

“You’re our light source,” she points out with a crooked grin. “Don’t run off, okay? Not everyone has your absolute self-confidence.” It sounds like an insult, but he’ll be insulted later. Instead, he nods obediently and shifts the child so that it’s leaning against his shoulder instead of his chest. The glow intensifies a little and the core’s hum gets louder.

“Follow me,” he says, loud enough for all of them to hear even though they’re already following him. “I’m close to the halfway mark. Keep close.”

————

They do get out of the temple. Everyone seems a bit shocked by that. They are securely out of the temple and in sunlight when the ghostly Usurper reappears. He is no longer pinned to the altar, though he is still stabbed through with a lightsaber, and now looks all the more like what Hux imagines a Sith Lord to look like.

“Didn’t we ditch you downstairs?” Ry’lah asks with a scowl. Her partner tries to shush her to little effect. The Usurper chuckles weakly.

“You know little of the power of the Dark Side,” he says. That is definitely a Sith Lord. That’s a thing Sith Lords say. 

“Yeah,” snaps Ry’lah. “And we’ll keep it that way.”

“Surely,” says the Usurper. “But I mean you no harm at the present.” The two apprentices approach him curiously. They may be the only ones there who believe him. 

“What do you want, then?” Rey asks. “Do you know what happened in the temple?” The Dark Side probably happened. 

“Yes,” he says. “The Many Paths have been Usurped.” He has an odd manner of speaking, the way he stresses certain words.

“In Basic,” Solo snaps. The Usurper laughs again.

“In Basic,” he agrees. “I was once known as Darth Plagueis. I sought to create Life out of Nothingness. I succeeded. Thus, I am the Usurper of the Path of Life.” He pauses and looks around, as if making sure his words are heeded. Hux can’t imagine anyone would manage to ignore a pronouncement like that. With a thin smile Plagueis continues: “As is probably quite clear, I failed in my secondary goal, which was to Usurp the Path of Death. I remained mortal, as did my my Apprentice and his Apprentices after. But there are Many Paths, as our ancient Doctrines would teach us, and those who wield the Dark Side do not see the difference between Mastery and Usurpation.”

“What is the difference?” Finn asks. Plagueis makes a gesture as though to pat him, then thinks better of it and folds his hands in his sleeves.

“With Mastery comes Acceptance of the inevitability of the Path,” he says. “One who Usurps seeks only to Use, not to Understand. There remains One who would Usurp all the Many Paths and Master none of them, bend them and the universe itself to his will, and he still lives. Unless he is destroyed, there will be no Balance and no Peace, and neither Order nor Understanding.” Plagueis looks around again, then visibly steels himself. “Let me help you. I cannot fight this Being myself, but these two–“ he gestures at Rey and at Solo’s son, who is lurking warily at the edge of the group – “are the results of my Usurpation. To each of them, I can offer one Gift of this Path before I relinquish it upon the Altar of Eternity.”

“Like hell,” says Solo, who looks like he’s going to punch a Sith Lord too. Plagueis smirks slightly. 

“Do you wish to cast me out?” he asks. “I saved your son’s life and his Mind from that Being years before. I would suggest you do not cross me.” Even as the Sith Lord speaks, Solo’s son – Ben – lopes forward. 

“If it helps,” he says hoarsely. “If I can protect people.” Plagueis’s gaze almost softens. His tone certainly does. 

“You have my word, it will, but I must deal with the child first.” Rey takes a step forward, shoulders back and chin thrust out. “Brave little thing,” says Plagueis, and he taps her on the forehead with one smoky finger. She doesn’t flinch away from the touch, but her eyes widen. “There. Do you see? I really do not mean harm.” He’s rougher, slightly, with Ben, or maybe Ben is weaker, because the man falls to his knees at Plagueis’s touch. “And this is yours now. I can help you no further, but perhaps I will be remembered having done something good.” With that, he bows low, draws the lightsaber from his chest, and dissipates. 

————

Something falls to the dead grass where the Sith Lord had stood, and it’s the alien child that pounces on it– a deep golden-colored Kyber crystal set in some sort of amulet. It looks old. The alien child clutches it to her chest and doesn’t let anyone else near it, so Hux doesn’t get a good look at it. It’s probably important, though. 

All of this was probably important.

Hux’s mind is elsewhere. No Balance and no Peace. Neither Order nor Understanding. What is left, then? Chaos, barbarous and primordial? Blind, stupid war and destruction? He is his father’s son, and while there is little he can say that he hates – hate is chaotic, blind, deep, passionate, primordial – he is and will always be opposed to disorder. War is nothing more than a tool. Politics is nothing more than a tool. People are nothing more than tools. Tools are a means to an end, and order – Order, Balance, Understanding, Peace, the steady, sound, controlled combination thereof – is the only end. All obstacles must be destroyed.

This being, this enemy of Darth Plagueis’s is simply a very large obstacle. 

As soon as they get off of this rock, he is going to call Admiral Calrissian and figure out a plan of attack. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Ben crouched uncomfortably a little way away from the group, his head in his hands. Well. Before they get off of this rock, he is going to get the exact name and location of this target. Hux fixes a smile on his face and sits down beside him.

“I could have sworn your name was Organa the last time we met,” he says as pleasantly as he knows how. “How are you feeling?”


	25. Ben Solo (10)

He does want to protect people. He’ll do anything to protect his family, his beloved family, his mother and father and Rey– But whatever it is that Darth Plagueis does to him hurts so much that Ben ends up seeing himself from above and feeling like he’s been turned inside out. He can’t even scream. 

Some people try to help him, but they’re more worried about Rey, because Rey is a child and Darth Plagueis did something to her too. Ben’s worried about her too, but he doesn’t think touching her would help either of them, so wanders off on his own and curls up and tries to meditate. He can’t meditate normally, let alone now, and when he should be seeing nothingness he sees slaughter and thievery and usurpation after usurpation, cycles upon cycles of violence and vengeance and blood on banners and abuse of names. 

“I could have sworn your name was Organa the last time we met.” The voice cuts through Ben’s thoughts like a lightsaber though someone’s body. “How are you feeling?” It’s coming from close to him, so he raises his head incrementally. It’s the Imperial. He’s smiling, but the smile doesn’t reach his cold blue eyes and Ben can barely feel him. He can feel the whole galaxy, the planet’s whole history of disaster, the dying gasps of ancient acolytes in the temple’s doorway, but he can’t feel a person right in front of him. 

“Splendid,” he mutters weakly. Amusement flickers in the Imperial’s eyes. 

“Better than last time, then,” he says. Last time? Ben struggles to focus on him. His eyes are unpleasant. His face is freckled and sort of smeared with blood, and his nose looks broken. Did Ben do that? Ben’s pretty sure he did that. The Imperial’s hair is a funny color, sort of reddish– that’s not common, is it? Something about it seems familiar, but Ben can’t pin down what.

“Who are you?” he asks. The smile drops from the Imperial’s face. It’s replaced by something closer to sympathy, but there’s a solid second where that face is completely, terrifyingly expressionless. 

“My name is Brendol. You’re Ben, right?” Ben nods. The name doesn’t ring any bells. Red hair calls to mind a royal court, possibly one out of old holos from Naboo. “We met once when we were younger,” Brendol continues. “I was under the impression that you used your mother’s last name, but everyone here seems to call you Ben Solo.”

“Well,” says Ben, “I’m with my dad now.” There possibly is some paperwork filled out for Ben Organa, from the times when his father was away and not certain to come back. He was back now, though, so Ben is a Solo again. Brendol nods solemnly. 

————

They talk for a time. Ben is almost entirely sure he is the one who broke Brendol’s nose, but the man doesn’t seem to hold it against him. Brendol works for Uncle Lando. His ship is broken in two pieces right now, but he seems sure he can fix it. He keeps the engine core on hand, and gets excited enough to actually have something of a Force presence when he talks about his designs, and even in this state Ben can tell they’re brilliant. Ben tells him about Uncle Luke and the Jedi school, and about his mother and the constantly bickering politicians of the New Republic, and how Darth Plagueis – yes, yes it must have been him, the same tall thin figure bending over a ball of light in a dark room – gave him power enough to cast out the temptations and whispers of the Dark. Brendol’s curious about that, probably because he knows so little of the Force, so Ben tells him about the Knights of Ren and the whispers in his head and his grandfather’s ghost and Rey inheriting his ghosts until he pushed them away and all the lost time. 

“That voice,” Brendol asks, his face showing fear and his presence showing nothing. “What did it sound like?” Ben fumbles for an adjective beyond Dark. 

“Bad,” he says childishly. “Like if every wrong thing in the galaxy had a voice and it was creepily polite about wanting to use you as a murder weapon.” It’s an approximation. Their entire conversation is approximations, but that’s fine. Only the Sith deal in absolutes. 

“I see.” The flicker of existence in Brendol’s presence seems to indicate deep thought. “Can you read minds? I think I have heard a voice like that before.” That piques Ben’s curiosity, and he nods and puts out his hands even though half of him is screaming that he doesn't want to see what’s in this man’s head even a little, even though he works for Uncle Lando and therefore has to be okay. Brendol bends gracefully, as if he bows for a living. 

————

The image is of a long corridor, filled with cold light. Ben is standing behind the memory of a boy with neat, short red hair, and follows where the boy leads. When the boy slinks close to a shut door to eavesdrop, Ben hears what he hears. 

“– certain to have the desired effect, Supreme Leader,” says a man who sounds like an older version of Brendol. “All that remains is to put the program to practical use.”

“Do pace yourself, Commandant,” says a voice– the voice, the one Ben heard for so many years like a nightmare. “The First Order’s resources are limited at this point. I cannot grant you clearance to spend them all as only you see fit.” It says more, but Ben’s too busy panicking and trying to yank himself out of the memory. It’s the right voice. He doesn’t really need to hear more. 

————

He ends up hyperventilating on Brendol’s shoulder, while the man gently pats him on the back and murmurs words that would be soothing if they came from someone who didn’t feel that wrong. 

“I take it it’s the same man?” Brendol says finally. Ben wants to punch him for how calm he sounds. He pulls away and glares instead. Brendol stares back at him, cold and empty, like … like cessation poured into a human shape. “Alright. We know whom to kill, then.”

“S-supreme Leader Snoke?” Ben stammers weakly. Brendol shrugs.

“Yes,” he says. “Supreme Leader Snoke.” There’s a flicker of his presence again, a sort of gambler’s excitement. All in, Ben thinks, because this man definitely, absolutely works for Uncle Lando.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *heavy sigh* Hux is gonna steal the Declaration of Independence ok
> 
> ... Now I kinda want a National Treasure AU, oops


	26. Lando Calrissian (Interlude 6)

Lando doesn’t worry, per se, about his missing ship. Captain Hux is the sort of person who can be counted on to be himself, and therefore to be fairly predictable. He is ambitious, but his ambitions tend to be abstract. He is a strict perfectionist and a competent leader, which means his people both dislike him on a personal level and respect him on an official one. He is generally unemotional. That last one is a detriment in interpersonal interactions again, but a benefit in terms of guessing his course of action, because he is unlikely to be swayed from his path by anything short of a different, better path, and Lando is pretty are those are hard to come by. When the Deception falls off of the grid, it doesn't matter all that much. Hux is either dead -without a fight? unlikely at best - betraying the Resistance - not something he'd do without taking half a fleet with him or some similar grand gesture - or in some unplanned detour he will soon return from. Unsurprisingly, the third option ends up being correct.

"Admiral Calrissian, I apologize for the delay in this report," is the first thing out of the kid's mouth when Lando answers his comm.

"Good to hear from you," he replies. "Is everything alright?" He doubts Hux would report in if it wasn’t.

"Yes sir." Someone who sounds suspiciously like Han scoffs in the background. Hux either doesn't notice or ignores it. "We have rendezvoused with General Solo and secured the missing ship. Everyone is accounted for and we will be en route to Base shortly." It would be downright mean to ask what happened- after all, he can always ask Han for the specifics later - but Lando Calrissian has not gotten to this point in life by being a nice person, so he asks anyway. Hux's tiny comm image grimaces. "Uh, we had a slight... a slight engine malfunction, nothing major. That is, everything's perfectly all right now. We're fine. We stopped to make repairs and we're all fine here now and going back." A beat. He has a very good sabacc face, all considered. He also has a very broken nose and, visibly, no desire to explain that. "Thank you, sir.”

In the background, Chewbacca says something that is unpleasantly violent and carries the connotation of calling out a lie. Han demands he watch his language around children. Chewie tells him he’s too old to count as a child, and they descend into bickering again. Ben drifts into view, a Jedi apprentice on each arm and a conspiratorial grin mostly on his face. Rey and Finn look excited. 

Everything, clearly, is fine. 

“Alright,” Lando says. “You can write up a full report for me when you’re back here. After you show me the child you picked up, of course– introductions are best done in person, wouldn’t you say?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And get your nose fixed properly, this time,” Lando adds. He will definitely pry the story behind that out of Han, along with details of why Hux’s comm seems to think it is eight thousand years in the past and on Naboo. 

“He thinks it makes him look dashing,” puts in Lieutenant Uthra from out of view. “Roguish.” Hux glares.

“It makes me look less Imperial, which is a fully reasonable thing to desire,” he snaps. 

“It just makes you look like an idiot with a broken nose, sir,” says the Chiss girl, Phasma. Over the years, she has learned to make honorifics sound like insults. Hux adjusts his glare slightly so that, presumably, it’s aimed at her and not at his lieutenant. Amusing as all of this is, Lando puts his responsible adult face on and fixes Hux with a stern look.

“No, really, have your nose fixed. I don’t like my officers permanently damaged.” Hux doesn’t wince, but this is about as close as he comes to it. Lando considers calling him on his nervous tell and ordering him to have his hands checked out too. In the background, Chewie growls something about Ben and permanent damage.

“Yes, sir. Of course, sir,” says Hux, and then he signs off.

————

“What happened?” Lando asks Han. The other man throws up his hands in despair. 

“The kriffing Dark Side of the kriffing Force,” he answers. It’s both probably true and not anything resembling the answer Lando is looking for, so he pats his old friend on the back, hands his the strongest liquor on hand, and waits. Han drinks, slams the glass down, and adds: “And why don’t you ask that First Order lunatic of yours?”

“Because we both heard his report,” says Lando. Han stares morosely at his glass. 

“You know what I really hate?” he asks. Lando makes a prompting sound. “Sith Lords.” Well, that’s promising.

————

The kid Hux… stole? bought? won in a rousing game of sabacc? – somehow the exact details are never communicated – can’t talk, but can read minds, scream into them, and cry, and can definitely levitate things with her brain. Lando has no idea what she’s supposed to be – and he would not put experimenting with genetics to create entirely new species past the First Order or past a Sith Lord, honestly – but she reacts, generally, like a scared child would, so he kneels and speaks softly and lets her tug on his mustache. The child decides in about thirty seconds that she likes him, latches onto his shirtfront, and doesn’t let go. 

“No point in letting the slavers have it,” says Hux.

“Quite right,” says Lando. 

“She’s sweet,” says Uthra. “Really. Even Phasma likes her.”

“I’ll make sure she finds somewhere safe to grow up,” says Lando. It’s not like this is the first lost child to cross his path. Hux nods, bows, and beats a hasty retreat. Uthra lingers a moment longer to wave goodbye to the child, then follows him. 

Lando sets the child on his knee – he finds it funny that it’s an automatic gesture by now, but he’s seen and handled so many children that it doesn’t matter that none of them were his – and looks deep into her big yellow eyes. Weird color, but not particularly weird eyes. One little hand goes for his mustache again.

“Hair, alas,” he tells her. “Not tentacles like yours.” He’s hit with a wave of close-enough-ness from the child and grins. “Yeah. I guess that makes me your uncle too, huh?” Agreement. She’s a bit hazy on what the word uncle means, but she does grasp that this will make her like Ben and Rey, and that makes her happy. For someone who can’t talk, the kid’s definitely chatty in her own way. “Yeah, I’m your uncle. Why don’t I get you something to eat–“ Intense excitement. Hux and his crew live off of rations and annoyance. “– something to eat, and then you can tell me how you got here.” 

————

This child eats everything sweet by the handful, wants to play with things she’s not supposed to touch, and tells stories out of order. In short, she is exactly like every other child in the galaxy, at heart. 

But that story, even out of order, is something else entirely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you guys want a species list? Because there's a lot of not-human characters in this but they're all relatively canon species...


	27. Brendol Hux II (11)

It is probably impossible to take down a fully functioning military government and kill its leader overnight. Probably. Brendol, at least, can’t think up a way to pull that off. Perhaps were he still with the First Order, he would have some sort of access to the Supreme Leader, but as it were… Infiltrating anything was dangerous and complicated, and the First Order had been obsessively paranoid about its own security even before Brendol had betrayed them. It is safe to assume they are worse now. He draws schematics of ships and buildings from memory and tries to plan covert assassinations. A single shot crippled the Death Star, he thinks, a single man toppled Emperor Palpatine; maybe a single blow like that can take down the First Order as well. It’s a matter of striking the right point. 

Admiral Calrissian has, at some point, coaxed a full story out of the alien child. She – everyone seems to agree that it’s a female red-tentacled mute monstrosity – was the result of some experiment of the the First Order, curtesy of the Supreme Leader, and but she and some of the others had escaped when their transport had crashed, only to be pursued by mercenaries. That’s the story the circulated around the Resistance, anyway, occasionally with a note saying that Brendol had rescued her. It’s abundantly clear that Admiral Calrissian has gotten the entire story, complete with Hux paying off the mercenaries and everything that went bizarrely wrong during the rescue mission, but for some reason has kept that part to himself. 

The point of it, rather clearly, propaganda. Not only does the First Order experiment on children, it uses generally-illegal cloning technology and tampers with creating life. The monetary contributions from Republican worlds come pouring in. General Organa goes before the Senate and gives an impassioned speech. Admiral Calrissian and General Solo have drinks with important people and presumably also make impassioned speeches. The war effort marches, slowly and inefficiently, but it does march on. 

It's not surprising. Hux isn't even surprised by the grumbling and the fuss and bother in the Senate. Eight years is enough to get used to the inefficiency and bickering of democratic systems. It's not even all that surprising that Admiral Calrissian gives a number of briefings with the mute alien child on his hip- that's propaganda too, after all, and Admiral Calrissian has no children of his own to flaunt. The surprising part is that people are paying attention to Brendol. 

He's used to command, but he is not used to being accosted by news reporters. He is certainly not used to being paraded about with Ben (Solo? Organa?) at or near General Organa's speeches. He is not used to getting messages at odd hours: the ones from the Jedi boy, Finn, who had once been called FN-2187, are just about the most normal, since Finn mostly wants details and information about the First Order, but the ones from Ben are downright incoherent and the ones from people he has not met are just bizarre. There is a holo of him carrying the mute child on his back and uncomfortably fielding questions about the Resistance's new starships. It's, of all things, popular, and a Senator's teenage daughter informs him in person that it's because he has a handsome face. The whole thing is utterly surreal. 

————

They're about to ship out. Brendol is literally walking towards the Deception when someone calls his name and stops him. 

"Captain Hux! A moment of your time?" Admiral Calrissian has forbidden him outright from being impolite to reporters, because it's bad publicity. Brendol is allowed to be shy, or nervous, or to say he doesn't know, or to say he's not allowed to speak about some topic, but he's not allowed to be impolite. So he turns, adjusts his gloves, and tries to smile properly. 

"What can I do for you?" he asks. "I'm afraid I will have to be brief." 

The reporter – who is about five feet tall at best, androgynous, and has a horn-like crest – smiles and launches into a long question about his feelings and his past and what he plans to do. Hux feels, honestly, like shooting the reporter, running for the Deception, and clearing out of there. He very often feels like that, actually, so it is in no way the reporter’s fault. Saying that would definitely be awful in terms of PR, though. 

"My feelings are not particularly relevant to the mission," Brendol says, as he fumbles for something PR-appropriate to say. "But I fully intend to kick Adelphius Tarkin's sorry ass, and I hope to do so personally. Excuse me." And he very nearly runs for his ship. 

A note: that miserable excuse for an interview goes viral, because Brendol’s face is much less off-putting when he is nervous than when he is trying to be friendly, and because he is so very young and he does look rather roguish with his broken nose, long hair, and dark history.   
————

Adelphius Tarkin’s fleet is guarding something. That much is abundantly clear even from the preliminary scouting reports. They are trying to be subtle, but Brendol gets the impression that the First Order’s ability to actually succeed at subtlety is rotting in the same prison cell as his father. The Deception switches to First Order insignia, arms her deflectors, and slips in alongside the enemy ships. 

A note: Adelphius Tarkin does not question things. It’s a virtue that has gotten him far in the First Order, but it is not one that will get him far in battle. He is made aware of the extra ship, and assumes it belongs to the Supreme Leader or one of this more shadowy allies – there are no Knights of Ren in this universe, but the Supreme Leader still calls up shadows to do his bidding, because some things never, ever change – and ignores it. When the ship vanishes outright, he considers himself correct and puts it out of his mind. The ways of the Dark Side are far beyond his ken, and to his minimal credit, he knows that. Instead, he focus his attention on what looks like a pitifully small Resistance fleet coming out of hyperspace just outside of range. 

Another note: Adelphius Tarkin is wrong on so many counts it’s almost impressive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yoooo, big battle incoming! And then lots of yelling about the Force! And then clones! And dramatic rescues! I'm excited, tbh. 
> 
> (I was so excited I forgot to title the chapter. Oops.)


	28. Ben Solo (11)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay. I do not write sensibly while I'm sick. I tried to make notes, and a solid half of them are about Hux's nose. Help. 
> 
> Anyway, on with the show? TW for Ben's issues, a lot of talk about people dying, and possession. (TW for the Dark Side, basically. Nothing new for Star Wars, but yeah.)

Ben can feel the war coming. He can’t sleep for the masses of frightened soldiers, can’t sleep for other people’s dreams of bloodshed and maps and plans and lost comrades– whose comrades? He isn’t sure. He sees Republican and Resistance fighters and pilots and First Order soldiers without much difference. The soldiers, the ones at the front lines and without commands, are the same sort of afraid. Officers with redredredred on their armbands drink and smoke and joke like students because they don’t know or don’t care, but their soldiers are afraid afraid afraid, their soldiers think that they will be sacrificed to fill a moat so others can cross– not exactly that, but it’s something similar, something senseless. Officers under Ben’s parents and uncles don’t stand apart from their soldiers, and they and their soldiers don’t think about filling moats with bodies, but they think of death and blood and bodies drifting through the void space and children without parents and parents who have lost children. The stars themselves are alight with other people’s terror. 

————

Ben isn’t the one who steals the ship. Not really. The school is a safe place, and now it is full of students and their parents and other family members. Uncle Luke has gone off to help the army, along with the young knights like Ry’lah and Temmit. He has been in battle before. He has led soldiers before. Among the frightened shaking souls, Uncle Luke is a beacon of calm and steadiness. He is also swamped. 

Ben doesn’t steal the ship, because Rey and Finn come up to him and say something– Finn says something, firm and steady to cover up the fact that he’s shaking and Rey is looking far far far far away. Ben is too far gone himself to grasp words, but he agrees with the general sense of it. They do have to do something. They can’t stay where they are, because something is calling to them from a dark place and telling them that disaster awaits.

Technically the three of them steal the ship together. Also, technically, it’s not really Ben who does the stealing, because he sees his own hands move and hears his own voice speak and doesn’t control either one. It’s alright. He can sit and watch whatever is piloting his body also pilot the ship. The other him is a better pilot than Ben is anyway. 

Rey lies on her stomach and draws frantically, trying to put the whirling painful things in her head into reality. Her eyes are narrowed in concentration. It’s a map– The Map, in a sense, it’s an important map, even though Ben isn’t sure what it’s a map of or to. Finn mans the guns, even though he can’t reach all the bits and bobs. He’s still small, too small for this, just like Rey is too small for all the things locked in her. They’re overflowing. They glow like beacons, like shining waterfalls, like supernovas. If anyone’s looking, they will see, but there’s a good chance they won’t be seen for who and what they are. They look like something much, much bigger and grander than children in someone else’s ship.

————

There is a dark gap, a sort of empty space, where Brendol is supposed to be. It’s the opposite of a presence, really, a lack of a presence, a cessation, but it’s as identifiable as a presence so that’s good enough. He’s behind enemy lines with his soldiers and his ship, and Ben hopes he’s okay. The other him, the one who’s piloting, doesn’t care at all. That other him doesn’t care about anything, not really, because it’s a vicious creature, a monster wrought in a dark room lit only by the shining thing that Darth Plagueis held close.   
It also follows the map Rey is drawing, Ben realizes distantly. That’s probably good.

————

A note: Darth Plagueis is not– was not, was never – a good man. He was a Sith Lord, which is in essence proof of a deep-seated wickedness at the least and an intrinsic evil at the worst. As far as Sith Lords go, it can be said, perhaps, that Plagueis was not particularly active in his evil; he was a scientist at heart, and spent more time in pursuit of his own immortality than in pursuit of the deaths of his enemies, but it’s a small variation. When he succeeded at twisting the Force to his whim and creating a small, shining life out of nothingness, he didn't see a baby, a child, didn’t see his son. He saw a successful experiment. In death, he clung to existence to watch that experiment unfold with cold, academic interest.

Another note: He is sorry there is nothing else he can do. He is not sorry that people are suffering, he is not sorry that the First Order runs roughshod over entire races. He is not sorry that the New Republic is only one major disagreement away from political meltdown. He is not sorry that his living experiments writhe in pain. He is, however, sorry, that he did not prevent the rise of a creature more powerful than many Sith and he is sorry that he can’t present more optimal conditions for his experiment’s development. What he can do is interfere, swat away predators and incubate valuable traits like power.

————

Ben’s ship comes out of lightspeed out of view of the battle. None of them are looking for the battle, for starships and shots and shields and stalling. Two fleets are facing each other down and two fleets worth of soldiers are terrified and today a government will fall. Behind the First Order ships, a great Darkness looms, a devouring Darkness that can blot out stars. The monster in Ben’s body smiles hungrily. 

“Hold on tight,” it says, low and growling. “It’s showtime.” Rey grips onto the seatback. 

“It’s cold,” she says very quietly. “We should go quickly– It’s so cold, maybe they’ll melt if we take it away.”

“We’re not taking it away,” says the monster in Ben’s body. “We’re going to kill it.” And it pushes the ship to descend into the Dark.


	29. Brendol Hux II (12)

Minimum casualties, Brendol thinks. That’s something he and General Organa and her ilk can agree on, though he’s pretty sure she doesn’t think much about sims and points. She probably thinks about lives and families and children, or something like that. It’s what her speeches would suggest, anyway, and she’s generally an honest person so it may be more than propaganda. Brendol can’t go much further than sims and points, and he’s aware enough that it’s a failing on his part, at least on this side of the war. He will make up for it in skill and action. 

At the center of the defensive formation is something vaguely familiar. It looks almost like someone crafted a ship out of a planet, or a large moon, hollowed out and pushed along like a mobile basecamp. Smaller ships, short-range ones, zip around it like flies, while the hulking star destroyers seem to be forever in its shadow. 

A note: In another universe, Brendol would have designed an impossible engine to make it move through the Unknown Regions like a mythical thing, and in that universe it would not be the most terrifying thing in the First Order’s arsenal. In this universe, though, there is no Starkiller Base because there is no half mad General Hux to command it and no Uthra Tech to build it, and the engine core that feeds off of the energy of stars and other power sources is small and prototypical and hidden away inside the Deception. In this universe, the Citadel moves slowly, almost clumsily, and there are no Knights of Ren to stalk along its fortifications and watch the sky and read the future. Things are very different than they could have been.

Another note: Some things are still the same. Supreme Leader Snoke still lurks far underground and projects a looming image to its cowering minions. It still speaks politely, because the Dark Side is lies and duplicity and scheming and heartless betrayal as well as murder and chaos and blood on walls, and none of those things really preclude a superficial politeness. Supreme Leader Snoke is a Usurper of many Paths and thus plays a long game, but in this universe like in any other it forgets that there are other players. 

————

The Deception drifts close to the Citadel, mostly invisible, entirely quiet. She is aptly named. Supreme Leader Snoke isn’t looking for her, because it is looking for specific signatures among the stars– it is looking for Jedi, and for the smoke-shrouded presence of a the Sith Lord who chased it from its prey. Its games are too long to care about little traitors and lesser species and half-human girls with cold hearts and quick trigger fingers. Those who are with him either don’t see or don’t know how to look. The Deception lands without anyone noticing, and Brendol leads his crew for the communications post. They even run silently, now. Anyone who looked and listened and understood would say that cessation had more than one form that day. 

The guards at the communications post are a little surprised that they are being relieved early, but Uthra is charming even through a Stormtrooper helmet and Brendol can recite all the correct directives and it certainly does sound like they’ve been sent by one of the many officers who give orders without thinking them through. 

“We could double check with Lieutenant Mitaka,” suggests one of the guards. Another scoffs. 

“He may cry,” he mutters. Phasma tilts her helmeted head. 

“New meat, huh?” she asks. There’s a small chorus in the affirmative. 

“Aw,” says Uthra. “Don’t bother him, then. I’m sure the miscommunication wasn’t on his side. You guys go take a break, why don’t you? Since we’re already here.” It’s clearly impossible to argue with her logic. The guards leave. The Deception’s crew take up their positions and Brendol and Uthra head inside to shut down the entire machine.

————

Lieutenant Mitaka is around twenty, round-faced and wide-eyed at the sight of two Stormtroopers where there shouldn’t be any. He goes wider-eyed when all communications go dead, Brendol kills the lights for good measure, and he and Uthra both take off their helmets. Actually, he’s so startled that he leaves his blaster in its holster and points his datapad at them instead. 

“Are you going to scream?” Brendol asks. “You shouldn’t. No one will hear you.”

“Hux, that’s the sort of thing that makes people scream,” Uthra chides. Lieutenant Mitaka makes a quiet, high noise in his throat but shakes his head. A moment or two later he has recovered himself enough to talk.

“Are you going to kill me?” he asks. Brendol has his blaster raised to do just that, but it’s not like the man can raise an alarm now, and he can almost hear Admiral Calrissian talking about mercy and bluffs inside bluffs and the correct time to throw a hand of sabacc to make your opponent bet more on the next round. He lowers the blaster incrementally and glances aside at Uthra. She’s better at improvisation.

“We don’t want to,” she says. Her voice almost cracks, it’s excellent. “We just want this war to end. There’ll be no order this way.” 

“You have to understand,” says Brendol. Minimal casualties. “We don’t want anyone to have to die for peace.”

————

They tie Mitaka to a conveniently placed and very broken console and get out as quickly as possible. Mission accomplished. If someone kills him, it won’t be Brendol’s fault. Now there’s a choice: either to go back to the Deception and clear out, if the Supreme Leader’s on-base guards are actively looking for them, or to try to press deeper within the perimeter while the Deception leeches away the Citadel’s power. 

“Bunch of idiots,” Phasma reports when she sees them. “Someone – an actual officer – asked me what was wrong with the communications station, and believed me when I said it was a power surge and someone had gone in to fix it. I’m not even a good liar.” She isn’t. She really isn’t.

“We left for exactly that reason,” Brendol replies, and well, that’s remarkably close to the truth. Uthra cuffs him upside the head for his troubles and he scowls at her. “Anyway. If they’re running around like idiots, there is no reason to leave this half finished. Let’s see what we can do to the Citadel’s high command.” That is met with a rousing, if rather muffled and muted cheer.

“Chaos and destruction, I hope,” says Phasma flatly. Brendol hopes so too, actually. It sounds… fun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since this fandom seems to REALLY like Mitaka for some reason...?


	30. Ben Solo (12)

The monster in Ben’s body stalks through the shadows. The entire moon – it is, probably, a moon, isn’t it? It’s too small to be a planet, Ben thinks – is swamped in darkness and fear. Two levels of fear, it feels like; one of them is an old fear, a steady fear, one that has always been there as long as the moon has been what it currently is. It is amplified by the coming battle, but otherwise unchanged. The other fear is new and fresh, with some specific cause that Ben can’t pull out of anyone’s minds. They’re too busy panicking, anyway, to be looking for Ben and Finn and Rey. 

Actually, that’s not right. They are – the Supreme Leader is– looking for Ben, and to a lesser extent for Rey, and to a greater extent for Darth Plagueis, but no one is looking for the monster, and certainly no one is looking for Finn. It’s a complicated way of hiding, but it may work. The monster in Ben’s body marches forward, steering both Rey and Finn before him, and the panicking soldiers part before them as if they are ordered to do so. The monster belongs in this place, Ben thinks, so maybe they are sort of ordered to. 

They march forward, heading for the center of the Darkness. There are tiny little sparks of light hidden below, shifting and struggling against being consumed. They put Ben in mind of a dress Rey’s mother once wore, one that had tiny little gemstones embroidered on a blue so dark it was almost black. When she moved, the dress would ripple and the tiny gems would shift about and vanish and reappear. Only the dress – and Rey’s mother – was beautiful, and this is not. It is hideous. Ben hates it. The monster thinks it’s funny. 

————

They get inside. Somehow. The monster belongs there, and Rey is whispering don’t look at us, don’t look at us, don’t look at us the whole way, and Finn walks like a young soldier, a young officer. All of that comes together to mean that no one looks at them and no one questions them. The monster wishes they would, because it is eager for a fight, hungry for blood and destruction. It also wishes for a lightsaber, a real one, and on that it and Ben find common ground at last. 

As they descend, the lights go out, piece by piece. Ben barely notices, because he doesn’t need light to see and can’t see the lights for the Darkness anyway. The monster runs on instinct as it leads them down down down… 

The gemstone sparks below grow bright with excitement. They know something is coming; they can feel Ben and Finn and Rey, even though they don’t know anything about them, and they see one of their own returning victorious somewhere far far away. They light up and gleam with jarring joy even as they are subsumed once again.

A note: In another universe, the monster in Ben’s skin has a name and a different creator. It is the same monster, though, wrought from the Dark and from his own anger and despair. It isn’t a new sort of thing. The Dark Side is chaotic and full of wild viciousness, and wild viciousness and chaos often turn ordinary things monstrous. In this universe, Ben doesn’t have a name for the creature and he does not have a master who feeds it, so the facet of himself that is, would be, could be Kylo Ren is an angry mask and a weapon to protect those he loves. Kylo Ren is a powerful creature, though, and a powerful gift from a long-dead Usurper. 

————

Now that he is deep underground himself, Ben can hear the little gemstone sparks more clearly. They’re so young, so small, smaller than Rey, and no one has ever held them or carried them like backpacks across green fields, and when he realizes that Ben is his with such a sense of overwhelming loss that even the monster in his body stops for a moment. They wonder about fields of ice, but Ben thinks no, green green green and soft before the monster yanks him away. Rey almost stays behind, though, because Destiny or not, she is a child. Before she moves on, the field is dotted with flowers. Before Finn follows her, it is under a golden sun and teems with little lives. 

————

When the Supreme Leader notices them, it’s almost too late for anything. Rather unwittingly, they are one point of a less-than-coordinated pincer attack. Ben and the monster march up to the Supreme Leader’s door as one, because by then the monster is calm enough to wait and Ben is angry enough to charge so they are more or less on the same page. The guards there, at least, know enough to know Ben isn’t meant to be there, but the monster can freeze their blaster shots in mid-air. That startles absolutely everyone. 

Then chaos descends.

————

There are shields of dancing light all about them. Shields aside, Rey fights dirty, like she always has, because it is tough to tap into the Force when someone is kicking your shins. Finn has wrested a blaster from one of the guards and handles it just as well as he handles a lightsaber. The doors to the inner sanctum crack open, and the Dark power within ought to knock them all back, but doesn’t quite do the trick. A blue-skinned soldier dressed like a Stormtrooper leads a charge from down a hallway, a blaster the size of a small cannon on her hip. Finn shoots to disarm. She shoots to disable. There’s a distinct difference. A red-haired man jams the door so that it stays a little open, then shoots a monster’s grin over his shoulder. 

“There’s our minimal casualty,” he says. There is a sudden crack, and the doors slam fully open and stay open. “Oh dear,” says – yes, alright, that’s definitely him – Brendol, still grinning. “Out of power already?”

“Shut up,” says a tall woman who looks like she could be Finn’s sister. “And let’s go.” 

Ben– the monster– Ben and the monster go first, and a sense of grand Destiny goes with them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ughhhh metaphors. Hux is up next, so at least that chapter will be somewhat coherent. Sorry.


	31. Brendol Hux II (13)

Brendol isn’t really surprised to see what Uthra has dubbed the “Jedi Destiny Squad” at the Supreme Leader’s door, deep within the Citadel. He’s annoyed, but he’s not surprised. The plan has to continue. They’ll either keep up or fall behind. There isn’t a third option, and so far they’re keeping up. Finn can shoot. The girl can possibly bite through armor. Ben – well, he’s probably doing something. Brendol focuses on getting through the door. It may be Force-proof – he is almost certain that it’s Force-proof – but it isn’t armor-wedged-in-unexpected-places-proof.

A note: Brendol is a scholar of military history, albeit less now than as a student. The Battle of Endor was a massive defeat for the Empire and a massive victory for General Organa and her people, and as such it is something Brendol has studied in such detail that he can possibly draw the battle maps in his sleep. The lesson there is undeniable– do not rely too much on technological superiority, because someone can just as easily kill you with a rock as with a blaster. It’s shoddy tactics to rely too much on any one thing, but that’s easy to forget in the heat of battle. 

Another note: Brendol Hux II does not run hot, even in battle. Even his anger is cold, more grudge than passion. He is every inch his father’s son.

The Supreme Leader is drawn into the fight, briefly, and Brendol leaps at the chance to shorten the struggle. The door opens, and an elbow guard and a recharge canister are enough to keep it from closing. Almost perfect. He can’t see their target, true, but it’s almost perfect. He grins over his shoulder. 

“There’s our minimal casualty,” he says. Even as he says it, there is a loud crack and the last of the lights go out, the last of the Citadel’s power is devoured. The door rolls all the way open, and his grin widens. “Oh dear. Out of power already?” Do not rely entirely on any one thing. Even with the Deception’s core working at full capacity, he’d calculated it would take at least a half hour longer than this, probably more… Something isn’t right.

“Shut up,” says Uthra, “And let’s go.” She doesn’t move, though, which is a good indication that she agrees with him. Something is wrong here. Ben Solo leaps past them, moving with a fluid, animal grace, and flings himself through the doorway, and that just about cements the issue. That man doesn’t move like that. Brendol almost gives the order to cut and run, but the two apprentices dart past him too, and that galvanizes his startled crew into action. They don’t – that is to say, people who work for the Resistance do not – let children run into danger alone. 

————

The Supreme Leader greets them politely, back turned. That voice gives Brendol the creeps. They’re possibly secondhand creeps, but still. 

“You’re the Usurper of the Myriad Paths!” blurts the girl Rey, and really that’s the first time Brendol has had reason to grasp the phrase “bless her heart” in the idiomatic sense of it. That really is the sort of thing the spawn of someone like Luke Skywalker would announce in exactly that shocked and scandalized a tone. 

“And you are Luke Skywalker’s girl,” says the Supreme Leader. “I was expecting your cousin.” The girl squints at the Supreme Leader’s throne rather dubiously, draws her practice saber, and stands at the ready. She’s a little small to be standing at the ready. Finn whispers something in her ear, and she nods. Phasma raises her massive blaster and cocks her head. Brendol nods.

After that, a number of things occur more or less at once. Phasma and two other crew members open fire– on the throne. After a moment, the rounds start tearing holes in it. Uthra, Brendol, and the others cover them. The Supreme Leader stands abruptly. Somehow the effect is underwhelming. Ben pounces like an overgrown and Force-sensitive cat, and that’s about the time Brendol realizes the idiot is dong this unarmed and in a crackle of something that stings. Rey and Finn both put up their hands, grabbing for something with the Force.

Phasma adjusts her target as the Supreme Leader moves, but her perfect aim is suddenly distinctly imperfect due to a wave of the Supreme Leader’s hand. It’s still enough to keep the man – up close, it hardly looks like a man, more like a corpse, like a nightmare dredged up from the darkest corners of history and imagination. Something is wrong. Everything is wrong. Something is moving behind the Supreme Leader’s eyes and it makes them look downright wormy. As those eyes fix on Phasma, her blaster clatters from her hands as she freezes in place. Whatever the Supreme Leader really is fills the room, can fill the Citadel– 

“Steady on!” Brendol orders, feeling less than steady himself. 

The Supreme Leader reaches for a weapon, but it jerks out of his hand and towards the apprentices and sort of hovers there like it can’t make up its bloody mind. Ben takes advantage of that and goes for the jugular. Literally as well as figuratively, because at that moment he looks like a nightmare too, teeth bared and eyes blazing with a long-dormant fire. They both go down with a disgusting-sounding thunk and Brendol retains enough control of his limbs to go for the Supreme Leader’s console. 

It may have a different power source– it does, at least for monitoring the fleet– there’s no time to tamper with it, so Brendol deepens his voice as far as it will go, orders all units to focus fire on the left flank of the Resistance navy – and thus turn their backs to the big guns – and then fall back, then – the display goes dead as soon as he thinks about it. The girl Rey offers him a determined grin over the fistful of wires she’s just yanked out. Good girl.

“Fall back!” Brendol shouts again, this time in his own voice. “Everyone, let’s get out of here!” Phasma is on the ground, on her knees. Functioning while terrified is possibly not her strongest suit. Finn grabs her by the arm and hauls her for the door, which is starting to close– the weapon finally flies to the Supreme Leader’s hand– something is wrong, something is very wrong– Brendol grabs the girl and bolts, and somewhere along the way Uthra grabs his hand– something or someone, some nightmare, roars in triumph– there is a sickening crackle that spreads through the air, Brendol can feel it on his skin– why is that accursed room so long?

Outside, there’s air. No, that’s not right. There’s air, but it has nothing to do with being outside. The first breath of it is enough to make the girl yell for her cousin, and her yelling is enough to make Brendol look back. He’d lose points for this. He’s too sick with fear to care. 

Ben is kneeling before the empty, shot-through throne, an unreadable look on his face. The Supreme Leader is nowhere to be seen. Something is completely wrong. 

“Ben! Ben, come on!” Rey yells, and he stumbles after them, clumsy and once again a liability. There is something on his hands that could be blood, but gives off a feeling of being too wrong to be blood. Brendol grabs him and forcibly wipes his hands clean. It’s a small sort of comfort and an equally small delay. Worth it.

————

“That– that thing,” Phasma says very softly, once they’re all aboard the Deception and flying away at full speed to rejoin the Resistance fleet and possibly take a few potshots at Adelphius Tarkin along the way. “That thing is not dead.” Ben nods in dazed agreement. 

“We shot at it, took out its command center, and Solo here managed to wring its neck,” says Brendol firmly. “And that was while we were going in blindly. It’s going to wish it were dead by the time we are through.” He sounds more convinced than he feels, but his fear is like his anger, a cold, bitter thing that is easy to channel into cutting sharpness of vision. He’s as close to terrified as he can be, but that only strengthens his resolve.

His father feared nothing. That, in retrospect, was a weakness. A gambler has to know his enemy, and an absolute lack of fear leads to complacency and failure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone in this plot is an idiot. Kylo!Ben is an idiot with negative self preservation instinct. Hux possibly quotes Lando when trying to give his crew rousing speeches.


	32. Ben Solo (13)

Ben feels like he is going to die. With the monster knocked out of commission, he is left sick and shaking and clumsy, and he doesn’t even know how he got onto the ship– out of the moon-thing – how he got away. 

The ship makes his stomach turn, because the ship is hungry and that’s not a thing ships should be. Brendol is talking, but Ben really has no idea what he’s saying. It’s presumably something of a rallying cry, though, because the sick fear that permeates the air fades. His voice is steady and his presence is a cold void. After a moment’s hazy consideration, Ben buries his face in the older man’s shoulder and stays there. Brendol doesn’t feel like anything. 

It’s pleasant. It’s almost like meditating, like thinking of nothingness.

————

He doesn’t remember falling asleep, but he wakes up as he’s being passed back to his mother and Uncle Lando. It’s vaguely familiar. Uncle Lando seems rather amused by the whole matter, and ruffles Ben’s hair. 

“Welcome back to the land of the living, kiddo,” he says. “I heard you tried to strangle Snoke. Good job.” Ben’s mother huffs in exasperation and shoots Uncle Lando a vicious glare. 

“Ben, dear.” Her voice is soft and honey-sweet, but she herself is sharp-edged and tense, even as she kisses his cheeks. “Next time you feel the need to run away to help us, tell me and do not take Rey. We were worried sick.”

“It’s not dead,” Ben mumbles. He wants to say he’s sorry, but this is more important. “I tried to fight it but it’s not dead. It went … somewhere and it took the little lights away too.” 

“Hush,” Ben’s mother says. “We’ll take this from here.” She believes him, but she thinks he is a child. The memories behind her eyes are of Ben as an apprentice, Ben as little kid, Ben being dragged back from some disaster with blank eyes and no control of his hands, talking to ghosts and losing track of reality. He wants to tell her he isn’t that small anymore, or that weak, not with the monster in his skin and the sight of the galaxy at large, but his vision swims and the words die on his lips.

————

The First Order had retreated. It’s not what people call a rout, but the Resistance gains territory and has captured stragglers. Uncle Luke and the knights were supposed to interrogate them, but Uncle Luke is taking Rey and Finn home, so the young knights are to do it themselves. Ben isn’t sure why anyone has to do it. The prisoners are scared half out of their wits, and they're hardly true believers. They're with the First Order because they can’t be anywhere else. 

There is going to be another battle. Then, maybe, there won’t be another war. No one wants there to be another war. Not even the prisoners. Ben doesn’t think the general on the other side, the one Brendol calls Adelphius as though they were old friends, even wants there to be another war.

“I hope he has trouble sleeping,” says Brendol with a sort of vindictive glee. Brendol, Ben thinks, does not have trouble sleeping. He has scars on his palms from where he clenches his fists too tightly, but he sleeps like he lives: in essence, silently. 

“He probably does,” says Ben. If he focuses, he can feel Adelphius Tarkin’s terror, the terror of failure. He knows how his predecessor died. He knows how his uncle died. He dreams of Death Stars falling to pieces. Brendol grins.

“Good,” he says. “It will further dull his strategic acumen.” 

“You want to kill him, too,” says Ben carefully. Brendol blinks at him. For a moment, Ben gets a flash of an image– Adelphius with his thin face and high cheeks, a nobleman’s manner and an arrogant laugh, Brendol’s scarred, gloved hands hypothetically closing on the other man’s narrow neck. The next instant, it’s gone, and all that remains is Brendol’s hungry smile. He smiles like a monster, only Ben gets the impression that there is nothing else there, nothing behind the monster. Cessation.

“Of course I want to kill him,” says Brendol. The man who was the previous Grand General of the First Order was torn apart by the Force, the rumor goes. Ben shudders and tries to blot out the thought. Brendol’s smile fades. “It may not occur. I don’t believe the New Republic has the death penalty, so if we capture him alive, he should be fine. Is that what you wanted to hear?” 

“Sort of,” says Ben. “I … I need to go.” He bolts from the room. Brendol’s stare follows him, even when he closes the door behind him. Something is making him feel nauseous and making his skin itch, and he doesn’t know what it is. The monster, waking slightly, wants to wrap Ben’s hands around a throat as well, and it wants that hand to have claws. 

————

His mother wants him to go back to the school. His father wants him to stay and fight. Ben doesn't know which one of them he is supposed to listen to. He doesn't want to go back, though, he's sure of that, so he pleads with his mother and tries to follow his father's lead. It's hard. He can't fly like his father and uncles and grandfather, and he feels too much of other people to ever pull a trigger, not unless the monster wakes, and he's terrified to let the monster wake. 

He can play scout, though. He does that gladly, even though he learns so many things that aren't useful. He needs to know where Adelphius Tarkin's flagship is, not what the man is dreaming about. He needs to find where the little gemstone sparks are hidden now, what they are, not that they scream in pain and wish for Rey's green fields. Some days, the monster is the only thing keeping him in his body. He's not sure when he sleeps, but when he does the monster watches him from behind a mask and clawed gloves.

Ben's parents argue about what to do with him. He is being useful. He is technically an adult, and he can make his own choices. He should be kept safe. He should be free. He is in too much danger. 

A note: Leia Organa has seen enough to see the value in safety and order. The Organas, on Alderaan, believed in government for the good of all, in representation and protection and a galaxy in balance. Her birth mother loved democracy more than she loved life, a democracy where no on would be taken advantage of. Leia Organa married a man who talked to his ship and had flight and freedom in his blood. Ben's father doesn't believe in governments. The two of them argue about many things, and this is one of them. 

————

It’s during one of those scouting adventures, one that finds Ben drifting past the minds of officers who do not want to go into a room and answer a summons from the Supreme Leader, that everything goes wrong. One moment Ben is skimming the surface of the mind of Adelphius Tarkin’s most likely successor, and the next a disgustingly familiar presence is upon him, wrapping him in tendrils of who-knows-what that dig through his mind and through his soul, his feelings, his very self. 

He struggles. It is, as Snoke would put it, ineffective and inefficient. 

The monster tries to drag him back into his body, Snoke tries to yank him out of it, and the last thing Ben remembers doing before he blacks out from the overwhelming pain is screaming for help– his mother, his father, his grandfather, Darth Plagueis– anyone– Brendol…!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) I really like torturing Ben, and I'm sorry.
> 
> 2) Hux is creep.
> 
> 3) There was almost a multiparagraph rant about space politics in there, and that's terrible.
> 
> 4) I'm definitely going to need to add a "deleted scenes" thing to this fic because there is so much that just doesn't fit.


	33. Leia Organa (Interlude 8)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very short chapter today, because dang Leia is hard to write. There may be two chapters up tomorrow, depending. Thank you to everyone who commented~ You guys are wonderful motivation to keep writing and not mope!

Leia is in a meeting when she feels her son scream. She can always feel him– she can feel everyone she loves, and then some, because she feels with every fiber of her being – but normally he is angry, or scared, or happy, or some ordinary person’s feeling, even when he drifts away and spreads himself too thin. This scream is one of utmost agony, and the feeling is sharp enough to make her double over with a gasp. Han is on his feet in an instant, coming to her aid, but he can’t hear it, can’t feel it himself. She grabs him by the shirt and yanks him so that she can whisper in his ear. 

“Ben–“ she hisses. “Go find Ben– Find our son!” 

Han is argumentative and tends to disobey orders on principal alone. This is not one of those times where that facet of his nature takes over, however. He kisses her on both cheeks, helps her into a chair, and runs out. 

————

It’s worse than she imagines, when Ben goes silent. Han carries him back to her: a thin, shallowly-breathing tangle of arms and legs and hair. That is her son’s body, their son’s body, but Ben is not in there. 

Ben’s body is empty and uninjured. No one can find anything wrong with him– of course no one can, there isn’t anything physically wrong. Leia seethes and snarls and interrogates her brother, who knows nothing, and means to interrogate Ben’s friends but he hasn’t got any. She yells at Hux, who does occasionally talk to Ben, but it’s abundantly clear that he has no idea what is happening. He calls Lando about two minutes later. Lando looks flabbergasted, but promises to help however he can. It is a pointless promise, but it’s kind. 

Poe Dameron volunteers for a rescue mission. Of course he volunteers. He’s a sweet boy. Shara and Kes raised him well. She doesn’t want to send him anywhere, but he is Shara and Kes’s son and if he gets it into his head to go there is not a power in the universe that can stop him. That’s why she’s so fond of him, honestly. She sees him sidetrack Hux at the hangar. They are both going to go on that rescue mission, as soon as there is a shred of information, she knows that to be true, and she’s grateful. 

(Mercy, where has the time gone? It feels like it was only days ago, a few years ago, that she herself was charging into danger with a mask to distort her voice. It feels like only days ago, a few years ago, that she and Luke and Han and Lando were so very young, and now, what? They’re they’re all much too old to save people, and she is trapped in regulation and positions and the values of names. Anakin Skywalker’s daughter rages against walls and order and disorder. Bail Organa’s daughter breathes deeply and plans how to leak information and weapons. Leia is both. Nature doesn’t always triumph over nature.)

————

Luke calls her in a panic a day later. He’s found Ben. Rather, Rey found Ben and told her father. Leia turns the volume all the way up, makes him repeat himself twice, then says she’ll inform the appropriate Senatorial subcommittee. She bids her brother goodbye, then turns around and opens the door and almost hits Poe Dameron in the face. He givs her his best innocent look.

“Has there been any news, General?” he asks. She says that yes, there has been, repeats her intention to inform a subcommittee so that she can mobilize the Republic's forces as well, and leaves the door unlocked. Hux is lurking halfway down the hall, and would be essentially invisible were she not looking for him. He bows shortly as she passes, and she notes the odd design of the blaster he’s holding. Looks like she won’t have to leak weapons after all. 

————

In a matter of hours someone has broken into her room, stolen the recorded transmission from Luke, ransacked an R&D laboratory for fancy new equipment, hijacked the Deception during a training exercise, and escaped the base. It’s quite efficient, if very illegal. 

“Yes, well, that is what you wanted,” says Lando with a knowing grin. “Han’s not the only one who wants to see your beautiful smile again.” Leia rolls her eyes at him, even though he’s probably right. 

“If they don’t save my baby, I’m having Hux courtmartialed,” she replies. Lando snorts.

“Duly noted, Highness,” he says. 

————

Half an hour later Leia learns that Han has taken the Falcon, taken the little mute girl who is so fond of Lando, and vanished as well. He loves his family almost more than he loves the open sky, she knows.

————

Three hours later the Senate subcommittee is summoned and informed. They like her, and she has delivered them two grand victories over the First Order, so they only deliberate another hour before they agree to authorize the use of military force once again. 

It’s late. If this was the only action taken, it would be too late. 

Even the members of the subcommittee know, by now, that someone else has already taken action.


	34. Poe Dameron (Interlude 9)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poe? Poe! Everyone likes Poe!

Poe Dameron is generally a nice person. He’s genuinely friendly. He’s polite unless he’s really provoked. He’s loyal to and protective of his friends and his family and his cause. He’s nice to children. He rescues small animals. He’s even on good terms with the reporters. 

He is the young face of the Resistance, even though he’d never cal himself that. Some people are drawn in by his beautiful eyes or his open manner, but the ones whom he talks into enlisting really do believe in the cause and really do like him.

He is not, exactly, on good terms with Captain Hux of the Deception. He wouldn't say he dislikes the man– it’s not like Hux has ever done anything to earn his dislike, after all – but their interactions have been halfway business and halfway competition and the end result is not really pleasant. Even BB-8 takes issue with the guy, and BB-8 has definitely not been trained for battle and the like. Given the opportunity, Poe avoids the man, and the feeling seems to be mutual. It’s better that way. 

He likes Ben Organa – okay, it’s Ben Solo again now, but the kid’ll always be Ben Organa in Poe’s head – the way adults are fond of children. He’s never really grown up, Ben hasn’t. It’s cruel to even think that, Poe knows, but he judges others by his own standards, the same as anyone else. At sixteen, Poe Dameron started flying for the New Republic, and at twenty he first led a squadron of pilots for the Resistance. At twenty, Ben is all limbs and vagueness and impatience and the sort of blunt manner of speaking that hasn’t really changed since he was twelve – or fourteen or sixteen – and no amount of ridiculous Force powers is going to change that. 

When they find Ben unconscious and General Organa starts saying he’s not in his body, Poe’s blood boils. He loves General Organa like an aunt, like a dear member of his family, and he would like to return any pain done onto her threefold. And on top of that, someone has done such harm to and through a child. He won’t let it go unpunished.

He volunteers for a rescue mission. General Organa refuses him firmly, pain visible in her deep dark eyes. 

Hux is lurking nearby. Lurking is really the only apt word for what he’s doing. General Organa has already interrogated him. He hasn’t been actively dismissed, though, so he stays and he lurks. That’s one of the many things about him that are a bit off-putting. But there is a chance that he knows something, isn’t there? He’s spent enough time with the kid…

General Organa marches away, already busy dealing with someone else, and Poe makes his way as nonchalantly as he can over to where Hux is standing. The man nods at him. 

“You heard what happened?” Poe asks. 

“Obviously,” says Hux. He tilts his head and looks down at Poe, though it seems like he’s only looking down in the literal sense. “Commander Dameron?”

“Yes?” He needs a plan, and stilted conversations with Hux may not be a good part of it.

“If you mean to rush to the rescue, my crew and I will gladly support you. That man’s power is of value both to the Resistance and to the First Order.” He says this very calmly, as if he isn’t suggesting a very rash course of action at all. Poe stares at him, and Hux grins wryly. “What? Do not suggest that you mean to stay behind until the General has gone through all the legitimate channels.”

“Of course not,” Poe says, because he has every intention of charging into the void if it would make General Organa smile. 

“You cannot do that in a one-man fighter,” says Hux. “The Deception’s range is not that limited.” And then he turns away and leaves, just like that. 

————

Of course, Poe ends up taking him up on the plan. He really can’t fly a one-man fighter through unknown space, and there are rumors about Hux’s ship that are even weirder than the ones about the man himself. A half-Chiss woman who is a solid head taller than Poe is polishing a very impressive piece of artillery on it, and raises her head at his approach.

“Hux’d said you’d turn up,” she says.

“Yeah,” says Poe, for lack of anything better to say. The woman nods. 

“He’s getting better guns. I’d suggest you acquaint yourself with the ship or go check on your general.” She stresses the your heavily. She, like Hux, works for Lando Calrissian, and there is no shortage of snippiness between the two branches even though Admiral Calrissian and General Organa get along swimmingly. 

“Right,” says Poe. He’s heard the ship eats people and doesn’t need fuel. That’s probably ridiculous, but he has his priorities in order. He’ll go check on the general.

————

General Organa leaves her door unlocked. She doesn’t say anything, but she leaves them everything they could possibly need. The Deception is gone before anyone can think twice about it, en route to coordinates mentioned in a recorded transmission from Luke Skywalker. 

“Rescue missions,” mutters the half-Chiss woman wearily. “And with him.” By that she means Hux. He is making a count of the weapons he’d stolen from R&D and paying very little attention to anyone.

“What?” Poe asks. “Not his style?”

“His style,” says the woman, “is stupid.” She pauses, then changes the subject sharply. “My name is Phasma. You’re Shara Bey’s son, aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” says Poe. “Nice to meet you.”

“No it isn’t,” says Phasma. Poe Dameron is generally a nice person. He gets the vague impression he is going to want to punch everyone on this ship before they get anywhere near Ben Organa.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poe to the rescue!


	35. Brendol Hux II (14)

Brendol has done some odd things in the name of the Resistance over the past few years. Every single one had made sense in context, but, objectively, they were odd. Charging off on a rescue mission when there is nothing physical to rescue, however, takes the cake. It is a very necessary rescue mission, because Ben is General Organa’s son. The Resistance and the First Order are different, but they are not that different– the children of officers are, were, always will be more valuable than ordinary people. 

The pilot is also a particularly odd addition. He is wholeheartedly General Organa’s man, so in that sense he, too, makes sense in context, but he is … unusual. He clashes, more than a little, with the Deception’s crew, even though he is polite and friendly and charming enough. The clash may be essentially spiritual, even though Dameron is too stressed to bicker and snipe about whose commanding officer is best. They’ve dragged three small fighters, including Dameron’s prize X-wing, aboard the Deception, and Dameron keeps polishing it. Phasma keeps glaring at him. 

“Hux,” Dameron says abruptly. “Tell me something.” Brendol glances up. 

“Yes?” he prompts. Dameron frowns.

“What caused the rumor that this ship eats people?” he asks. “It seems rather senseless.”

“The Deception does not eat people,” Brendol says, raising his eyebrows. “The engine may be prototypical, but at no point has it consumed organic matter as fuel. It is not formatted to do so.”

“We don’t eat people either,” Uthra adds helpfully. “Literally or metaphorically, promise.” Phasma snorts. 

“Well, I figured,” says Dameron snippily. “We wouldn’t keep you if you did.” He winces, apparently regretting the tone instantly. “Sorry. I’m sure you’re all very good at what you do.”

“We are,” says Phasma. Brendol shrugs.

“Would you prefer someone else was with you?” he asks. Dameron’s glare sharpens again. It’s clear to all present that there was no one else who could or would be a part of this, at least in so underhand a way. Dameron’s squadron is bound by thousands of regulations. Dameron’s own leeway comes from his close connection to the general. The Deception’s crew can only benefit from this– success or failure, this will be seen as a show of loyalty. And it will be a success, if Brendol has anything to say about it.

————

The coordinates from Luke Skywalker are deep in Unknown Space, in an area of the map that is absolutely blank. It would be more of a surprise if it was somewhere well-labeled and easily accessible, because Supreme Leader Snoke is the sort of creature that likes to hide to make itself more impressive. Brendol has a vague desire to kill it squarely in the light, kill it in a way that everyone can see, in front of the reporters and every single piece of recording equipment they have. If Snoke is forced to stop hiding away… 

That’s all purely hypothetical, though. There isn’t much value in hypotheticals. If he has the opportunity to kill Snoke, he will do it, regardless of the time or the place. The mission is more important, though. They are here to bring Ben home, not to hunt for monsters. Still, the thought of Snoke puts a cold, deep hatred in Brendol’s blood, a hatred he can’t shake. Maybe Dameron can feel it, because he actively keeps solid objects between them.

————

The coordinates lead them to what looks like a larger version of the Citadel, and Brendol almost laughs, because that’s just classic. Of course it’s same thing only bigger. It probably even has the same kriffing passcodes. The Empire’s and the First Order’s creativity may have died with Emperor Palpatine, because no one ever does anything new. The Citadel is built along the same lines as the Death Stars, even. There are only so many ways to build a hollow moon. 

“We don’t have the Jedi Destiny Squad,” says Uthra. “This may be a bit harder this time.”

“We have the ace pilot,” Phasma demurs. They do have the ace pilot, though the ace pilot looks rather unsure of his position. He pats his X-Wing like it’s alive. 

“Is there a plan?” he asks. “Or do we just swoop in and hope we can catch Ben in a jar or something?” Brendol grins. He always has a plan. 

————

The Deception lands like a well-cloaked leech. It should be a leech, anyway, but Brendol’s too wary to set it to drain energy. The overwhelming wrongness he had felt before is stronger here, so thick one could almost cut it. Phasma takes a one fighter, Dameron takes his X-Wing, and a Togruta who has a scar on her throat and a low, rough voice takes the third. They’re to do reconnaissance, while Brendol and Uthra lead the charge into the same entryway the other Citadel had. 

Two steps towards said entryway, and the wrongness solidifies. There is no power running on this station. Nothing mechanical is running. There are no soldiers here, either. Uthra looks like she is going to be sick, and Phasma’s fighter has not left the ground. The Togruta woman’s isn’t even on. Fine. He hits his comm against his hand until it works.

“The sooner we get moving, the sooner we can leave,” he says. “I don’t want to be here a minute longer than needed, believe me.”

“At least we have the right place,” says Phasma, a distinct quaver in her voice. The Togruta guns it and flies off. 

“This can’t be healthy,” says Dameron. “Everyone, stay in contact at all times. I don’t want anyone lost.” He takes charge of things easily, but this isn’t his to take charge of, this isn’t his mission, how dare he act above–

And those are not Brendol’s own thoughts. He exhales slowly and ignores them. Dameron takes charge of things easily. That’s good. That’s probably why General Organa likes him so much.

“Copy that,” Brendol says. “We won’t turn off our comms.” There is a long pause before the others second that, but they do. Objectively, it’s stress and fear, and possibly loyalty to him or the Admiral, rather than insubordination that likely makes them hesitate. With that thought firmly in his mind, he takes Uthra’s hand and hurries forward. 

————

Supreme Leader Snoke needs a new architect. This Citadel is structured literally exactly like the previous one, save for a few expansions which follow the original format. Brendol explains that in detail over the comm, because when they walk in silence for too long Uthra’s gaze grows vacant and her hand slips from his. He has to talk. He isn’t going to lose anyone, and certainly not her. She’s valuable. So, he talks. Dameron talks too, though he has no real knowledge of the Citadels beyond what he can see from above the surface. Dameron asks questions and makes everyone participate. It’s… it’s a lot of things, but mostly it’s helpful. If Brendol’s grasp of how the Force works is correct, Snoke knows they’re coming anyway.

————

Someone or something is opening doors for them. Once, Brendol tries going through the wrong door, and finds himself being physically pushed back on track. He announces that over the comm too. 

“They’re asking me to land,” says the Togruta in response. 

“Are they?” Phasma asks, warily curious. “What’s your position– nothing is trying to move me off course.” There is a short argument about what should be done.

“Hang tight, Vii,” says Dameron. “We’ll be at your position soon. Let’s see what’s going on here.” As they speak, Uthra cautiously draws her free hand along the wall. She looks like she can feel something more than is there. Brendol is almost jealous.

“Look, I’m touching down,” says the Togruta, Vii, abruptly. “They don’t want us shot down, so I’m landing. It feels like… like…” She fumbles for words. 

“Like the kid from Almania,” Uthra finishes quietly. “It feels like that kid talking. She – They –“

“They’re everywhere,” finishes Dameron slowly. 

And then he turns off his comm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More Poe! And more creep! And more Hux having really odd priorities! :D


	36. Poe Dameron (Interlude 10)

They’re calling to them, calling out with their hearts and souls. They want help, but they also want to help, and it’s coming through like a silent clamor. Poe can hardly hear himself think over it, and he has no idea when he turns off the comm or when he lands his fighter. He is only vaguely aware of stepping out of the cockpit and onto the cold surface of the floating base. The calling only gets louder when he does that. It feels… it feels like something growing, like the tree that grows in his parents’ yard only turned upside down and inside out. The tree is a beautiful and happy growing thing, but the growth here has been stymied and stunted and twisted. They are despairing, but they know nothing else. Poe is the son of a loving family, and he wants to take them away to safety and love and home. They don’t know what any of those things mean, and it tears at his heart.

————

It’s cold. It is so cold it gnaws at the bones. Yavin IV is warm and full of sunlight, and despite everything he has done, every campaign he has participated in, Poe is ill-suited for the cold. The voices are used to it. They are from a cold place. They have always been in a cold place. The world, the galaxy, the universe, are cold and dark and full of looming shades of darkness. 

Yavin IV is warm and full of sunlight. A place like that cannot exist. Every place is cold and dark, every last one.

Everything is cold and everything is lost. They’re all lost. They were born lost. 

————

Poe walks like he’s in a dream. In a way he is– the Force is a thing of the realm of dreams, as real as dreams and nightmares, and as all-connecting. He sees with a dreamer’s eyes, and even as the ground opens beneath him and he steps down, down, down, down into the darkness and the cold and the voices calling out like gemstones buried deep within the ground, he doesn’t feel a waking fear. 

That’s a mercy, because there is much to fear there, both in dreams and in waking, but those that call to him do not know that and thus fear nothing. So he fears nothing, descending. All the universe is like this. Everything is cold enough to drain the life from you. Everything is so overwhelmingly dark that you can’t even see the idea of a path. 

A Path. The Myriad Paths have gone away. There’s nothingness where there should be somethingness, and the nothingness can be absolute.

————

There is a specifically discordant note among the voices beneath the surface. It takes Poe a long time, too long a time to realize it is there. This voice knows– something. It doesn’t belong here and it knows that much. It knows Poe doesn’t belong there either, because he belongs in the sky with freedom singing in his blood or under bright sunlight and in green fields. 

All the universe is dark and cold. That’s the way of things. That’s the way of the Force. That is entropy itself, the eventual end of all things.

But the Force is sunlight and green fields and growing tress, too, and in old buildings and weapons wielded by heroes and starships that remember revolutions and in the eyes of people who love deeply and sincerely, in mothers and sworn sisters and boys with pure hearts. That is also a part of all things, and the present is just as important as the end. 

Poe doesn’t wake to the discordant note, the dream doesn’t cease, exactly, but he comes to himself. He looks. He listens, actively. He dreams of a young man in a field as green as a child’s drawing, wearing black robes and crown and cloak made of smoke. The young man is faceless and afraid, but they know each other in some distant way. 

It’s good that he’s there, Poe thinks. That means… something. It means something. He should know what it means– the end of something? success? failure?

The whole universe is dark and cold, because life leads to entropy and entropy, eventually, devours itself, leaving only the void, only the cessation of all things. 

It is bright in that field. It looks like it could belong on Yavin IV. It looks like Poe could have played tag with other children in it, once. 

Surely, besides that young man, there would be children in it. There were children in it, once. Poe can hear their distant, cacophony voices. He knows they are children, because in this sense all children everywhere are the same, but somehow they can’t be there. Someone is holding them back. 

Whoever is doing that is absolutely awful, Poe decides very lucidly. The dream of the young man with the smoky crown mimes choking, even as chains appear to bind him hand and foot to the looming dark walls behind him. Whoever is doing that is also awful. 

Poe Dameron did not join the Resistance to let awful people have their way. 

That, that just then, is what does wake him, and he wakes to terror.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *disgusted wookie noises* I HATE METAPHORS, LITERARY TECHNIQUES, AND THE FORCE. 
> 
> ... I don't hate Poe, though. Have some more Poe. This is another short chapter, so there'll be another later today or two tomorrow, depending on your timezone. 
> 
> Cheers!


	37. Ben Solo(?) (14)

It wasn’t always like this. It couldn’t have always been like this. He remembers… he remembers a lot of small things. It’s not enough to craft an image of an entire different place, but it is enough to know that there is something beyond the cold, dark half-existence. He remembers laughter and light, a girl who could probably turn the Dark away with just her sweet and brilliant smile. He remembers a woman with eyes that could see through anything and a storm beneath her skin. He remembers card tricks and flying and the feeling that comes with looking out a window happily. He remembers students, teachers, family– the image of a boy with red hair and downcast eyes– a presence like smoke, a gift from the past… He remembers green, green fields. 

It couldn’t have always been like this, because there is no room for those things here. That means they’re important. He clings to them, because he won’t lose important things, not ever again. He can’t remember himself, but that’s lesser– his self is less important than his memories. If he loses those, if he loses the value of those, he will really be gone.

He will really be a monster.

He will really be lost to the Dark. 

All the universe is dark and cold. That’s the way of things. That’s the way of the Force. That is entropy itself, the eventual end of all things.

Eventually all will fade away, even memories of smiling girls and green green fields. They will shrink and dim until they simply cease to be. Eventually only cessation will remain. 

————

Others have been brought. He isn’t sure what or why, but others have been brought. They wander in the dark. He thinks they’ll freeze. There isn’t any sunlight, there isn’t any warmth, there isn’t any hope– nothing grows. Here, things only fade. 

Once, there were many ways to live, many Paths in the universe, but now they have been taken away, and slowly but surely nothing begins to remain. Even death will cease, eventually, in the Dark eons far into the future. 

————

He thinks he can remember sunlight on green fields. The human out there can remember it, but his self is fading into dreams. It’ll be gone soon. Maybe he should reach out… Even if the human ceases to be, maybe he can hold onto a stray thought, an image, something of the universe beyond. 

Yavin IV is warm and full of sunlight.

He remembers nothing about that.

————

He is standing in a dream of a green green field, and he’s wearing a crown and a cloak made out of smoke. They’re a gift. It’s nice to have gifts that can’t be taken away easily. 

Yavin IV is warm and full of sunlight. Children would play in fields like this. To whom does it belong? There are children’s voices, far away, but no children to be seen. Why is that? Surely they have not ceased to be if he could still hear them.

There is a young man standing opposite him, a young man with beautiful eyes and a vibrant power that comes from being really truly deeply alive. His clothes mark him as a pilot – the open sky, charting spaces between stars, there is nothing out there that cannot be reached – and he shines like something built of love.

All things will fade to darkness and cold, all things will cease. Even death will cease, eventually, in the Dark eons far into the future. Love will cease long before then, it is said, but until that day love is powerful. 

Love.

He remembers love and it’s like a bolt through his heart. Ben loves his family more than the universe, more than anything. 

There is a sudden pressure on his throat. There are sudden chains and shackles on his limbs. The dream is no longer of a green green field–

The young man opposite him wakes with a jolt and wakes to terror.

He does not. He has nothing to wake to and no way to do it. 

————

That’s alright. Others have been brought. They’re looking for him– for all of them.

Before all things cease, there’s something that has to happen, isn’t there?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... Hux is up next, so we're all done with ridiculous diction and blunt metaphors trauma for a while. Phew.


	38. Brendol Hux II (15)

In a matter of minutes, anyone Brendol doesn’t actively have eyes on cannot be contacted. He kicks a wall. He feels the wall kick him right back and propel him in the correct direction. It’s surreal. It’s also annoying. He can’t make sure no one screws up if he can’t see them or hear them, and this may well cost them the mission. 

The Admiral will be disappointed if Brendol doesn’t bring everyone back. He can’t disappoint the Admiral. He can’t.

The doors in front of them do not open. They’ve been led to a dead end, of course, because this entire accursed space station is antagonizing him–

The door doesn’t open because it’s locked. Why didn’t he notice that at first glance? He’s losing it. He’ll disappoint the Admiral at this rate. There isn’t anyone else to disappoint. There isn’t anything, beyond this accursed place and –

It was a very good idea to make sure the Deception does not drain anything from this space station. 

“Alright,” says Brendol. “It’s locked. Has anyone seen a key?” There isn’t a keypad of any sort, and after a long moment all present agree that they have not seen anything even remotely approaching a key. But it can also be safely assumed that no one has been looking. Brendol pulls his blaster and shoots the lock until it shatters, and then the door opens. “Fine, we don’t need a key. Moving right along. Mind your heads.”

————

They’re following – or being propelled down –  the route that should lead them to the Supreme Leader’s inner sanctum, up until a certain point. Then, whatever is trying to push them abruptly changes directions. It wants them to go left. Brendol does not want to go left. There is nothing to the left– that is, nothing that they’re interested in. Brendol has never gone left before–

He has definitely gone left before. Once, a lifetime ago, as a cadet following the path of a blackout to find a lost boy with vacant eyes and an important name. He’s definitely gone left before. He remembers that. Those are his own memories. 

“Everyone, this way,” he orders. It’s not necessary, but he wants to fill the air with words. He can’t think of any proper speeches, but he is still going to talk. “The– The General’s son. He should be this way. He was last time. The first time, that is.” 

“Were you invited aboard the Citadel?” Uthra asks, sounding almost envious. Brendol nods. 

“Because of my father,” he says, and launches into a slightly incoherent version of the story as they go. His father, in Brendol’s memory, is a cold figure, cold enough to belong there, but too normal, too common, to coarse. There is nothing frightening about him. He’s just a man, just the memory of a man. Why had Brendol ever thought him imposing and frightening?

————

They find Phasma mumbling to herself with her hands over her ears. She’s terrified. Brendol, with no small amount of anger, flips her comm on and glares. 

“Hush, Hux,” says Uthra, before he has a chance to speak. “I’ll stay with her. You guys go on ahead and come back for us.”

Vii, the Togruta, is out cold around another corner. She looks like she was trying to take her own horns off with her fingernails, which luckily is probably easier to imagine than to do. Brendol fights the urge to do the job for her, tamps down on it with all his strength, and feels blood on his palms. He orders his crew members to take her back to Phasma and Uthra. They move clumsily and wearily. 

How long have they been here? He could swear it has been only a few hours. Couldn’t he? Maybe they have been given up for lost after days spent wandering in the dark. The Admiral would be disappointed. No, that’s a stupid thought. There is a limit to how long the human body can go without food or water, and Brendol has yet to start suffering any ill effects. They have not been there more than a few hours. Anything else would be impossible. The Force may work in mysterious ways, but people still have rudimentary needs. 

He starts lecturing into the comm about flaws in the construction of the Death Stars, and he gets a weird feeling that more than his comrades are listening to him. He amends the lecture slightly, thinking of his time in the Academy and of the rows of experimental children and of FN-2187 who is a Jedi now, and tries to use simpler vocabulary.

————

Somehow, he rounds a corner alone, deep in an explanation about garbage disposals, and runs headfirst into Dameron who is moving like a man with a mission. Which is sensible, because they both have a mission. 

“You!” Dameron exclaims. 

“You turned off your comm,” Brendol accuses. 

“I found him,” says Dameron. “In a dream.” That… that throws even him for a loop. Brendol raises his eyebrows. 

“And how does that help?” The pilot grimaces. 

“He’s here. I know where-here, I think, and there’s others.” He looks back, as though looking for something in particular. “They’re kids, Hux.” They’re always kids. The Supreme Leader may have a taste for kids. That’s disgusting to think about, even to him.

“Our primary objective is the recovery of General Organa’s son,” he says instead of saying anything like that. Dameron draws back his fist to punch him, but turns sharply at the last moment. 

“Did you hear that?” he asks. Brendol did not hear that. He did not hear anything except vague static and muffled crying through his comm. On the list of things that grate on his nerves, auditory hallucinations that affect everyone but him rank quite highly. 

“Well, shall we investigate?” he prompts with overdone politeness. In his right mind, Dameron would have said something snappy in response or played along, but in this case he just nods and jogs in a presumably correct direction. Brendol follows him. He still can’t hear anything. 

————

Is the base on Yavin IV sunny? Brendol can’t remember, but it feels like an important thing to remember, just at that moment. He asks. Uthra, rather uncertainly, confirms that it is sunny on Yavin IV, sunny and warm. She thinks it’s important too. There’s a vague chorus of agreements through the comm, and the image in Brendol’s mind solidifies. Sunlight through the windows of the base, lighting up the hallways better than any artificial light could. 

The thought is abruptly invaded by people– Ben is standing at the end of the illuminated hallway, talking to Admiral Calrissian about something. No, wait, it must be a holo of the Admiral, because he fades away into nothingness and Ben turns towards the sunlight. 

The next moment, the image is gone. Brendol files it away as Force nonsense and assumes it means they’re getting close. He still isn’t sure how they’re going to … transport a… soul? How they intend to put Ben back in his body when they find him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Han up next. Phasma does not deal well with Force-induced mindfuckery, poor thing, but then again most people don't.


	39. Han Solo (Interlude 11)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that was an obnoxiously long hiatus. Sorry. Life happened all at once and with intensity. I hope 1.2k words of Han Solo being grumpy will make up for that.

Han Solo is going to wring the neck of the entire concept of the Dark Side. It’s decided. He is going to get his hands on it and strangle it, and that’s not metaphorical– has it ever been metaphorical? Han is a conman, but he’s an honest conman, and there are limits to his metaphors – anymore. 

{scared} says the kid, Lando’s kid. She’s definitely scared. Chewie pats her on the head with one massive hairy paw, and she folds onto herself and whimpers. {scared} {loud}

“We’re all scared, kid,” Han says. “But we’ve still gotta do this.” Chewie concurs. 

“Gotta drag that idiot Ben out of–“ Here, Chewie says something that is certainly not appropriate for a kid to hear. It makes her giggle, though. For a second. Before she gives a shriek of terror and dives to the floor again.

They’re locked on the coordinates Luke gave them, and the closer they come the more the kid freaks out. Well, that’s probably a good sign. The kid’s something like a walking-if-not-technically-talking Dark Side-detector. Lando swore, at some point, that you could tell a Sith Lord by what she screamed at. Han’s personally of the opinion that you can tell a Sith Lord by the stink, but saying things like that ticks Leia off so he keeps it to himself. The point is that you can tell a Sith Lord, and he’s probably going to find one, and when he does he’s going to strangle it. Him. Did they even have lady Sith Lords?

————

When the kid is screaming pretty much non-stop Han knows they’re right on top of their target. It’s a little large to be a moon, and it has a air to it that’s really annoyingly familiar. A stink to it, if you will. 

“Are we landing?” Chewie asks. Of course they’re landing. There’s something there, clinging to the surface of the space-station-thing like a tick. Look’s like Lando’s First Order brat’s there too. Han’s not exactly grateful for the company – objectively, backup is good in this situation, but he’d rather have someone around who doesn’t remind him of the worst sort of bounty hunter scum, the sort that would sell their own grandma for a profit. 

They touch down. The kid gives one final shriek and falls dead silent, and for a moment Han thinks she’s actually dead, but she’s breathing. Good enough. It’s not like Han invited her along– she’d stowed away in one of the Falcon’s secret compartments and Chewie had pulled her out after they’d already jumped to lightspeed. Probably should’ve jettisoned the kid out the airlock, but Han’s not that kind of guy anymore. He possibly was never that kind of guy. She’s too little to jettison. 

“Stay put,” Han orders, setting the kid in the pilot’s seat, the way he’d do with Ben when he was little and terrified of everything rather than slightly terrifying. She puts a finger to her lips.

{loud}{hearing}{manymany} she says carefully. {manymany} A beat. {family}

“Okay,” says Han. He’s going to regret this. Maybe Sell-his-own-granny Hux would be decent backup, actually. “Your family?”

{manymany} she repeats. {together}{made}{together} She grabs Han’s hand. {together}{my}{your}{protect}{manymany}{together}

For a split second he can see a multitude of her, a hundred identical round red faces, clustered around a taller figure like they all belong together. It’s Ben. It’s undeniably Ben. The girls grab at his cloak and his hands, but Ben is standing with his eyes shut.

{together} the girl insists. Han throws up his hands. Chewie lifts the girl up, sets her on his shoulders, and moves out with a growl of pure exasperation. 

“Move the kriff out,” he orders. 

————

There are small fighters lying around abandoned. It’s creepy. Dameron’s X-Wing is one of them, and he never leaves that thing behind. His BB unit is there. Turned off. Han groans. Dameron doesn’t turn that thing off. Ever. This thing feels like the Death Star, only worse. So many times worse. 

The kid is on Chewie’s back, and she’s… Well, in some sense she’s talking. Han can’t hear her, or rather can’t understand – it’s a hum, like insects or something, but Han’s not stupid. He’s not-stupid enough to know that she’s talking to the others like her, and he’s not-stupid enough to know that their conversation is blotting out something far worse, something that stinks like Sith Lords and gets under your skin and into your blood.

————

The kid’s a working map of the inside of the creepy space station too. Her doppelgängers are telling her things, and she’s trying to pass them along to Han and Chewie, with various degrees of success. She’s doing more visions, though. He gets the impression that it’s easier if there are more of them. 

She shows – they show – Han a child’s design of green fields and sunlight. It looks drawn onto whatever it is that Ben and the doppelgängers are sitting in, but it clearly gives them comfort. They show Han Dameron running down one of the dozens of identical hallways like a man on a mission, meeting up with help. They don’t show the help. Maybe they can’t articulate it right. They give up and show a group of Resistance soldiers– a blue girl clutching a comm like it’s the only thing keeping her alive, a Togruta with deep scratches around the base of her montrals. They show a specific door, and then presumably another specific door that looks exactly like the first one but is important for a different reason. 

“Do you know what a jungle is?” Chewie asks suddenly. They don’t. He goes into detail describing it, using words Han doesn’t even know and he’s basically fluent in Shyriiwook. It’s not like they’re talking in words, though. They probably are dreaming of Kashyyyk. It’s not as sunny as Yavin IV.

————

Chewie breaks down a door and suddenly they’re almost on top of the blue girl, who has her comm in one hand and a blaster in the other and looks like she’s about to vomit and commit a murder at the same time. The Togruta is curled on the floor behind her. The female half of Lando’s First Order Rejects Club is with them, and looks rather more put together. 

“Sir,” she says, and snaps a crisp salute. Her partner’s voice comes through the comm, a bit staticky. 

“Who’s there?” he asks. 

“Commander Solo,” she replies. “And company.”

“Hello, Commander.” That’s Dameron. “Are you our backup, sir?”

“No one thinks about trash compactors,” says Hux, with the air of someone returning to an argument five minutes late. “People should.”

“Does this place have a trash compactor?” Han asks. 

“Doubtful,” says Hux. “Not enough people.”

“I know where Ben is,” Dameron interrupts. The kid agrees with him excitedly and flashes a series of directions and turns in front of Han’s eyes almost faster than he can process them. Almost. He’s Han kriffing Solo. If he’s good at anything it’s directions and reaction time. 

“Great,” says Han. “Let’s get him and get everyone out.”

“Coordinated pincer maneuver,” suggests Hux calmly. “If we can avoid the Supreme Leader.”

{bad}{scared}{manymany}{hurts} the kid says. {Usurpation}

It’s abundantly clear that they will not be able to avoid the Supreme Leader. Han doesn’t need to feel the Force to know that.

“Hell with the Usurpation,” he mutters and sets off.


	40. Ben Solo(?) (17)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, uh... I have a job now? Which is super awesome, but also the reason I dumped a large amount of Han Solo being grumpy on y'all and bailed. Here's more Ben, and more incoherent Force-related muttering?

Before all things cease, there is the concept of cessation. In some sense it’s abrupt, knowing about it. Realization can strike like a blade or a blaster shot. Only, just like a blade or a blaster shot, anyone with the right sort of sense can predict it, so it’s really not all that abrupt at all. 

The concept of cessation doesn’t walk a Path. It doesn’t need to, because concepts don’t need to walk on anything. Paths can be Usurped. Concepts cannot. They can only be or not be.

They deal in absolutes. No, that’s something else. They are absolutes. 

————

He can see a man at the end of a hallway, a man wearing an officer’s uniform and a blank expression. For a moment, their eyes meet and it’s like something ought to happen, but nothing does, and the next instance the man in uniform is gone. So is the hallway. 

————

Someone important has arrived, more than the others, one of the others, someone who can chart the spaces between the stars and fears nothing, nothing, nothing, not even the concept of cessation. Some people live entirely in concepts, and this one lives in flight and freedom and boiling blood and where does he know this from?

Whose face does he remember from somewhere that must have been sunny? 

The many are joyous, because another has been added to their number. The one who belonged in the place where he is now, only now that one is outside and he is inside and that’s not how things are supposed to be. 

————

“Hell with the Usurpation.”

He can hear that clearly, perfectly clearly. All of them can. It rings like a call to something– a call to arms? a call to prayer? a call to feast? It calls and calls and echoes, and it’s passed around from thought to thought like some sort of miraculous thing–

Like a rallying cry–

Like propaganda–

Like the Force itself.

They don’t know what hell is, but it can take the Usurper away, can’t it? Boil its blood and cast it into nothingness, face it fearlessly and put it where it hasn’t been before and make it cease!

It’s a miraculous thing like revolution. Revolution. That’s the word. He’d forgotten, but revolution is a thing where people come together and rise and destroy those which and that which would prefer to destroy and control them. There was a revolution before Ben was born–

that’s his name. he has a name. how did he forget his own name.

– before Ben was born and his parents and uncles were heroes. There’s going to be another revolution now.

————

They don’t rise up in an army, because they haven’t the capacity for that, but they rise up in a conscious wave and follow, follow, charge billowing around and with the people Ben knows from the outside. 

They want sunlight and green green fields and concepts that are absolute and don’t belong to the Dark. Ben just wants the shackles off and to go home to his family after all of this, his family that lives and breathes revolution and Light and freedom.

But someone is in the room with him. 

————

Someone is in the room with him, and it’s the creature that has been his every nightmare. It whispers and grabs and twists and taints, and Ben hates it with every fibre of his being. He hates it hates it hates it–

Hate is powerful. Hate can lead to the Dark, but it can lead to revolution too. Even here, even where he cannot feel the universe in his blood, Ben can see and feel and surely it was part of a gift that lets him reach out and grab– tear– there would be blood if they were that kind of creature, wouldn’t there? But he can’t do much without a body–

where is his body. why doesn’t he have a body he always had a body.

— without a body so all he manages to do is make the Usurper stumble, slow down.

That’s quite enough, though, because a mostly-metaphorical wave breaks upon it, a wave made up of hundreds of minds and souls that thrum with little-child hate and pain and longing for sunlight and someone else’s thoughts of revolution, and the Usurper turns to face them and takes a blaster shot to the chest. 

That’s not enough to kill a creature like that, but it certainly sets the scene. Ben’s father grins with all of his teeth as two more shots ring out and strike true. Poe– Poe Dameron, Ben knows him, they grew up almost together – looks ready for a fight, ready for this specific fight, and a red-haired man who isn’t wearing an officer’s uniform but should be had the high ground and a sense of dead silence. 

For a moment, everything is still. Just for a moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please send me angry messages if I don't update by this time tomorrow, because I have half the next chapter written already.


	41. Brendol Hux II (18)

The Supreme Leader is a lot smaller than Brendol expects. He’s not sure what he really expected, actually, but it wasn’t something mostly human-shaped and roughly human-sized. And then Commander Solo shoots him– it, shoots it, and Dameron promptly follows suit. Well, Brendol won’t be left behind– he aims for the head. That does about as much damage as the previous two shots, but now the Supreme Leader is glaring at them rather than at the strange glimmering thing on the wall behind it. 

“Give me my son back,” says Solo. He looks actually pretty imposing. For a moment Brendol can completely believe that he was a rebel hero rather than just a rebel. Then the Supreme Leader waves a hand and throws him at a wall, which breaks the spell entirely. 

To be entirely fair, though, Solo doesn’t hit that wall. Two things happen quickly to prevent that. 

First, something that gives the impression of redness, overwhelming redness, grabs the Supreme Leader and wrenches downward. It isn’t real, of course, but it makes the Supreme Leader almost go down. 

Second: Dameron rises to the occasion, charging forward blaster blazing. In the grand scheme on things, blasters do little and heroic fortitude may do even less, but the grand scheme of things is made up of little things and when it comes to little things blaster shots and heroism are quite important. In this case, his blaster shots hum with redness and the ones that aren’t tearing holes in the Supreme Leader’s body are shattering invisible things on the wall behind it. 

And that, well, that does something, because even Brendol hears the victory roar that echoes through minds more easily than through air. 

————

The charge that follows is entirely surreal. Possibly, it’s unreal. Brendol’s vision blurs nine minutes in, but some things remain quite clear. For example, somewhere along the way Solo’s blaster breaks down, so he grabs the wookie and they both sucker punch what appears to be the Dark Side of the Force in the face. Also, Brendol is distinctly remembers yelling something about the last day of the First Order. Dameron gets Force-propelled along the ceiling. Uthra commandeers some piece of heavy machinery and uses it, undoubtably, to great effect. 

The little alien child – how had it even gotten there? – is buoyed along on a sea of red. It isn’t really a sea, Brendol knows, but he can’t put other words to it– a sea, a tide, power flowing like water. There are voices in it screaming, singing about freedom, and he can almost feel it in his skin. Freedom and sunlight. 

Later on, he’ll say it’s Commander Solo who wins the day, because that’s the right thing to say and no one really remembers, but that is a bald faced lie. Commander Solo stands defiantly in front of the Supreme Leader, or what’s left of it, throws his broken blaster aside, and challenges it to fisticuffs. His challenge is not acknowledged. The alien child then reaches out and grabs something that isn’t real, and a hundren invisible hands follow suit. When they pull, the Supreme Leader unravels like some poorly-made cloth, and with it come so many other things.

————

It is odd, to think of the end. Death, whether on a personal scale or on a grand scale means very little to Brendol Hux II. It meant almost nothing to his father, too, and he is every inch his father’s son even when he is trying his damnedest not to be. A hundred voices call out for revolution, and then are suddenly silenced, and that’s that. 

————

Brendol comes to his senses once his crew is safely abroad the Deception. The alien child is with them again half-conscious in Phasma’s arms. Dameron is with Solo. General Organa’s son is possibly accounted for. Probably. The voices that screamed and were silenced were the voices of children, and Ben Organa-Solo is, despite everything, an adult. 

————

He’ll say it was Solo’s idea to blow up the secondary Citadel too, but none of them know that for sure. Solo likes explosions, though, and Ben is his son, so it’s only proper to let him have the rescue mission. 

It’s just one mission. He can have it, and Brendol will have the war.

————

Yavin IV, when they return, is sunny and bright, just like it’s supposed to be. General Organa and Admiral Calrissian meet them, and Brendol keeps a straight face and tells all the proper lies. His father told lies exactly that way, but with intent to drag his fellow officers down and lift himself up. Brendol doesn’t think twice about doing the opposite. 

Ben wakes up. Good for him. Brendol thinks he could care less, but Admiral Calrissian makes him go check up on the man. He still isn’t sure how they managed to transport a soul.

————

“Oh, it’s you again,” says Ben. “I dreamed about you.” That’s not a proper thing to say. 

“If you get kidnapped again I’m leaving it to your father to rescue you,” says Brendol. Ben smiles at him, vague and distant. 

“No you won’t,” he says. “You’ll always come and save me. That’s how it is. I saw it.” There is a moment of silence as they just stare at each other, then Ben’s smile widens. He looks like the Sith Lord from the temple when he smiles like that, like Darth Plagueis. 

“You may need your foresight tested,” says Brendol. Ben is probably right, though, all considered. There is duty, and there are orders, and the Deception can sneak behind enemy lines. “I just came to make sure you weren’t dead. I’m leaving now.” He suits action to word. 

“You aren’t a prince,” Ben calls after him rather weakly. “I dreamed you were one, but you aren’t.” If his father… No, that’s not right. Brendol’s father wasn’t king of anything, and there is no universe where Brendol would be a prince. He would always be a soldier, an officer, an ambitious servant, whether bitter or devoted. 

“No," Brendol agrees flatly, and that is that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaand that's not nearly as over as they think it is. Obviously.


End file.
